Custom FIX tags can improve trading analytics and transaction cost analysis (TCA) by preserving strategy context that helps a desk interpret execution results. When those fields remain available in downstream tools, analysts can distinguish orders handled under different instructions and build more relevant comparisons. For trading systems leaders, analytics teams, and execution traders, the value lies in connecting each result to the decisions and constraints behind it.

During a public panel discussion at Equities Leaders Summit 2026, Lauren Weintraub, Head of High Touch Trading, Americas and EMEA at Nomura Asset Management International, described using custom FIX tags to identify strategies in TCA and support internal tools outside the EMS. "We use these custom tags to make our data management and data that's available in the backend just a lot more robust," she said. Her team also used the analysis in conversations with portfolio managers about how order instructions could affect trading costs.

In another public discussion, execution research specialists described using analytics to advise traders and portfolio managers on which tools worked better in different circumstances. That provides a practical purpose for richer order classification: testing whether a particular execution choice suited the situation in which it was used.

Start with one TCA question that existing records cannot answer reliably, such as whether a strategy performs differently under particular order instructions. Agree on field definitions with traders and system providers, then test whether the values survive the relevant OMS, EMS, and analytics handoffs. Assign an owner to review missing or inconsistent values before the desk uses those fields in broker comparisons or portfolio-manager reporting.

Join the upcoming Equities Leaders Summit to compare how buy-side peers preserve order context, improve TCA, and turn execution data into more useful trading discussions.