Opinion
Waters Wrap: Examining Digital Asset’s DLT strategy (and its broader implications)
Digital Asset has slowly expanded its influence with exchanges in the APAC region, and this year has made additional inroads in the US and Europe. Anthony examines the company's wins and losses over the last seven years.
After Refinitiv deal, LSEG Labs builds machine-learning market impact tool
Geoff Horrell talks about the Lab’s innovation strategy after the Refinitiv acquisition, deep learning, and the ideation process.
Waters Wrap: On people and thinking outside the box when hiring
Anthony explains that Wall Street is too cookie-cutter when it comes to producing and attracting talent. As tech keeps on rapidly evolving, banks and asset managers are going to need to look beyond the usual ranks to find specialist skills.
Cloud: Capital markets’ Swiss Army knife
The best uses of the cloud so far have been as an enabler of performance and innovation. The best uses yet to come could reshape AI. So, Max warns, if you think cloud is about cutting costs, you’re thinking about it all wrong.
Waters Wrap: Will privacy-enhancing tech for the back office fall flat?
Anthony says that banks should be more concerned with cleaning up the technical debt accumulated in the back office, rather than dumping money into bleeding-edge technologies.
Waters Wavelength Podcast: State Street’s COO on acquisition strategy
Lou Maiuri, chief operating officer at State Street, joins the podcast to discuss State Street’s acquisition of Brown Brothers Harriman’s Investor Services business.
Waters Wrap: The expanding battle over reference data identifiers
Bloomberg, Broadridge, and Finra have all recently made news in the world of standards and identifiers. Anthony looks at some of the questions the reporters at WatersTechnology will be asking going forward.
Waters Wrap: Owning the data & doing something unique with it—the ultimate alchemy
Based off of Max Bowie’s recent deep-dive feature, Anthony says that the world of alt data M&A—and the factors that drive these deals—is likely to change in the near future. For an analogy, just look to sushi.
Waters Wrap: Get ready for the low-code, no-code explosion
Anthony looks at some recent developments in the low-code and no-code spaces, and tries to better understand what’s hype and what’s reality.
Waters Wrap: Some random thoughts about Big Tech disruption and M&A in Q4
Anthony looks at what he thinks will be the biggest topics during the last quarter of 2021.
Machines can read, but do they understand?
A novel NLP application built on a Google transformer model can help predict ratings transitions
Waters Wavelength Podcast: Episode 241 (Big Tech and the capital markets)
Wei-Shen and Tony explore the idea of big tech companies disrupting the traditional Wall Street vendors.
A tale of two titans: Microsoft vs. Bloomberg
Bloomberg has fended off rivals to its business for years but Jo believes a more credible threat may be emerging.
Waters Wrap: Cloud, AI, Interop: The evolutions driving fixed-income progress
Anthony believes these advancements will provide the opening for Big Tech firms to created outsized influence that will change financial technology forever.
Waters Wrap: A whole new way of looking at data spend (And CME-Cboe thoughts)
As brokers start to explore various forms of self-service models, Anthony wonders if this could lead to a complete rethink of how commercial terms and contracts are structured for adding on new datasets.
Confusion remains over SEC’s market data efforts
Jo ponders some of the important pieces of the regulator’s National Market System modernization that remain obscure.
Firms can't afford to miss out on digital assets, says SBI Digital Markets
Waters Wavelength Podcast Interview Series: Kris Hopkins, now head of capital markets at SBI Digital Markets, discusses the opportunities for capital markets firms in the digital asset space.
Waters Wrap: Can interop connect the bond market better than consortiums? (Yes)
Anthony says that if trading firms want to take advantage of new datasets in fixed income and advancements in machine learning, they’re going to first have to embrace interoperability.
Market data hopefuls await deadline with bated breath
August 9 is when regulators could approve the governance plan for the new system of datafeeds in the US. Jo says this would be an important step forward for those hoping to create new businesses under the regime.
Waters Wrap: Google-Symphony—Something to see here?
Anthony wonders if there are any tea leaves to be read as a result of Symphony migrating its platform from AWS to Google Cloud.
Waters Wavelength Podcast: Episode 239 (The ‘E’ in ESG and quarantine woes)
Wei-Shen and Tony talk about climate migration and opportunities that might come about from a data perspective.
Waters Wrap: On outages, teamwork & greed (And ESG innovation & consultants)
Anthony examines a proposed protocol in Europe that would help keep liquidity flowing if there’s a major exchange outage. He also discusses innovation in the realm of ESG, and Esma’s new data analytics platform.
Regulators must find a balance with artificial intelligence
There's rapid digital transformation underway in the industry and regulators must get with the game plan while not over-regulating the use of AI.
Waters Wrap: A blockchain problem (And an alt data problem)
Anthony first looks at the alternative data industry and connects to QAnon, before explaining why there needs to be more hard numbers in the world of blockchain.