For an industry built around sophisticated execution technology, one of the most persistent problems in algorithmic trading is surprisingly simple: traders have often been using an algorithm designed for one objective to achieve another.
BestEx Research’s response to that problem – and the empirical discipline underpinning it – are central to why it wins Euromoney’s world’s best algos and execution services award for 2026.
The innovation is IS Zero, an implementation-shortfall algorithm designed specifically for low-urgency orders. BestEx’s own research found that 72% of traders use VWAP algorithms to minimise implementation shortfall for such trades. Yet VWAP is fundamentally designed to track the volume-weighted average price, not minimise costs against arrival price.
As founder and CEO Hitesh Mittal puts it: “There’s not been a zero-urgency implementation shortfall algorithm out there. Traders have been using VWAP as that zero-urgency implementation shortfall algorithm, even though it was not designed for that.”
IS Zero seeks to close that gap. It retains some of VWAP’s most useful characteristics, including spreading execution throughout the day and trading more when market volumes are higher, but adapts them specifically to minimise implementation shortfall.
One important change is its treatment of volatility. A conventional VWAP schedule largely follows historical volume patterns. BestEx instead adjusts execution to reflect intraday volatility, recognising that market impact can be considerably greater during more volatile periods.
IS Zero also introduces greater scheduling flexibility in less-liquid securities, where historical volume patterns can be unreliable, and prioritises opportunities to execute in dark liquidity to reduce market impact.
The result is not simply a theoretical improvement. BestEx tested IS Zero against its own VWAP algorithm through a large, randomised A/B test involving close to one million parent orders. Half were allocated to VWAP and half to IS Zero. According to BestEx, IS Zero reduced costs against arrival price by 37% relative to VWAP.
We are a rare breed in the execution space – a strictly independent, pure-play algorithmic firm
Hitesh Mittal
That performance has translated into adoption. Thirty of the firm’s 42 equity clients have used an IS Zero strategy, while roughly one third of equities filled shares came through IS Zero during the awards review period.
That empirical approach is important to BestEx’s wider differentiation. “One of the basic principles in BestEx’s algorithmic execution is that we are deeply rooted in empirical research,” Mittal says. “Otherwise, you would only find out the reality in production.”
Supporting its algorithms is AMS One, BestEx’s purpose-built algo management system. Rather than adapting technology originally created as an order or execution management system, BestEx designed the platform around algorithmic research, testing and deployment.
Its simulation environment allows researchers to back test strategies against historical tick data, including modelling passive-order fill rates. Strategy Studio, BestEx’s no-code algorithm design and customisation environment, then allows algorithmic configurations to be changed and tested without requiring researchers to repeatedly return to developers for coding. The system supports more than 150 configurable parameters and has added machine-learning-based A/B testing to adjust strategy weights according to performance and statistical significance.
That capability matters beyond BestEx’s own execution business. AMS One is also offered to banks seeking to build or expand algorithmic trading franchises without developing the entire technology stack internally. It combines BestEx algorithms with Strategy Studio, embedded transaction-cost analysis and monitoring tools across global equities and futures.
During 2025, BestEx added six equities clients, growth of more than 10%. Its proposition is particularly relevant to firms looking to extend algorithmic execution internationally: the company is live across 23 equity markets and around 12 to 15 futures markets, while offering its technology as a fully managed platform. BestEx also surpassed $1 trillion in notional traded for the first time in 2025.
That combination of execution research, technology and measurable adoption makes BestEx stand out. Crucially, the firm has retained its narrow strategic focus as it has expanded.
“We are a rare breed in the execution space – a strictly independent, pure-play algorithmic firm,” says Mittal.
In a market where improvements in execution can rapidly be competed away, that singular focus, combined with a willingness to test its own assumptions against production data, gives BestEx a compelling edge.
