Opinion
How to Implement the Ultimate Fair Value Program
The basic ambition behind any fair value service should be to provide a fully transparent calculation, writes Telekurs Financial's Lydia Galasean
Compliant derivatives
After 85 years at the heart of Wall Street, Bear Stearns is no more. But even before the highest profile and most celebrated casualty of the credit crunch closed its doors, the inevitable questions about who was next in line were already doing the rounds…
Closing the Gap
At the risk of repeating a trite cliché, India really is a land of contrasts. According to a recent report from the Indian National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, four of the world's ten wealthiest billionaires are Indian citizens,…
Today's SEC: Helping you un-break the law
As the US economy stares down the abyss of a de facto recession, in no small part due to lack of meaningful regulatory oversight of dubious financial practices, it appears the Securities and Exchange Commission's leadership has no intention of altering…
Portfolio Desks On the Block
For the past few months NYSE Euronext has been working with Pragma Financial Systems to provide floor traders on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) access to trading algorithms that will put their orders on par with outside orders ( see story, this issue…
Come Together
I'm not good at dealing with change-at least according to my last performance review-and the only major change I have to deal with is Inside Market Data 's upcoming move to new offices closer to Wall Street next month. So spare a thought for those data…
Bloomberg's All-Star Deal
In the lead-up to last week's annual All-Star baseball game in New York, a row erupted between Red Sox pitcher Jonathan Papelbon and the New York press corps about who was the better closer and should end the game-Papelbon or revered Yankees pitcher…
Attack of the Pods
Having covered technology for several years, it should come as no surprise that I'm a slight science fiction geek. When I hear the term "pods," I don't think of Steve Jobs' musical creations, but rather Donald Sutherland's shriek from the 1978 remake of…
No News Is Good News?
As I stumbled past the long line of technophiles camped out to purchase their iPhone 3Gs, it reminded me a bit of my childhood growing up with a large extended Irish-American family prior to the ubiquity of e-mail, texting and instant messaging. My…
There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
... But is there such a thing as free market data? For retail investors, yes, as a result of recent initiatives to bring real-time data to the masses by exchanges including Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, which both recently launched freely…
Passports, Please
Every time I land at London Heathrow Airport, there are two things I know I'm not going to enjoy. First is schlepping a week's worth of luggage and a laptop bag through that underground corridor from Terminal 3 to the Heathrow tube stop on the Piccadilly…
What Commuters Can Learn From Market Data
Regular IMD readers will know how I like to use analogies to illustrate issues relating to market data. So, with many of our US colleagues heading off for long weekends away to celebrate the July 4 holiday, I'd like to share some musings that occurred to…
Market Data Sourcing Challenges for Alpha-Seekers
With markets becoming fragmented and more competitive, the way that firms source market data is becoming a key component in the search for competitive advantage. By John Panzica, general manager of global financial markets at Reliance Globalcom
Editor's letter - Please tell me when it's all over
Switching on the TV in the evening has become more than a little scary. Last night on CNBC a Wall Street analyst succinctly illustrated the escalating energy predicament facing the West:
Risk tech enjoys a mini boom By Emily Fraser
Financial firms caught with their trousers down in the wake of the subprime mortgage meltdown continue to spend significant amounts of money on technology. According to a recent poll conducted by IBM and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets…
Suicide is painless - but what about usury? By Stewart Eisenhart
What do you do as an industry if you find yourself incessantly hounded by investors, analysts, and (to varying degrees) regulators to provide more transparency into your processes and operations in the wake of pricing debacles, a credit market collapse,…
Don't sell your alpha, capture it
Selling plays a fundamental role in every fund management operation, although, as Michael Ervolini explains, analysing how fund managers actually arrive at their sell decisions reveals that this process is anything but conscious and disciplined
A New Match
Letter From The Editor
Is Cost Out of Control?
Market and reference data spend is being duplicated across multiple departments and firms need to get costs under control, says Xenomorph's Brian Sentance
The Longest Day
Somehow it seems appropriate: Just 10 days after the summer solstice-the longest day of the year-there are press reports that Deutsche Börse is mulling the idea of opening trading on its Xetra platform earlier in the morning to compete with the upstart…
Industry Cuts Signal Need for Quality Data
Last week's firing of NY Mets baseball team manager Willie Randolph elicited a wave of disgust from New Yorkers, shocked at what they perceive as a near-sighted, reactionary response to short-term fluctuations in performance. Odd, I thought, that one man…
Where Do Old Acronyms Go to Die?
It's remarkable what you find when you start packing up to move offices. I recently uncovered a cache of old articles circa 2003 heralding the triumphant return of straight-through processing (STP) after the implosion of the Global Straight Trough…
Consolidating Positions
This year's SIFMA show may not have grabbed the headlines of years gone by with extravagant deals or earth-shattering benchmark claims, but represented a year of vendors bedding-in systems and consolidating their positions-perhaps reflecting the…