Editors letter
Warming up to registration by Stewart Eisenhart
What a difference three years, an economic crisis and a new US presidential Administration make. After successfully turning back SEC efforts to require hedge fund registration in 2006 - and keeping the issue from being meaningfully revisited since -…
Mind the gaps by Emily Fraser
If a road or pavement starts to crack, creating a public health and safety hazard, you would hope the local authorities would eventually come along and fix it. Unchecked, such cracks pose a risk of serious injury, particularly to weaker and infirm…
Will Non-MVPs Strike Out?
The New York Yankees and New York Mets both moved into billion-dollar new stadiums this season, despite the financial constraints associated with the turbulent economy. And while I can't vouch for attendance at Citi field, the Yankees have played to sell…
It Never Rains, But It Pours
If it is the middle of June, it must be time for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's (Sifma's) Technology Management Conference at the Hilton in Midtown Manhattan. In the past, the conference always marked the unofficial start of…
What Happens at SIFMA Stays at SIFMA
It's that time of year again. High-stakes rollers circle a large hall devoid of daylight. Some of them know their game, some are there to observe, others play their cards close to their chests. The players use strategies from free drinks to scantily clad…
Use the Force, Luke
I haven't spent much money on toys for myself for quite a number of years. Apart from plunking down a few dollars to replace the 3 megapixel brick of a digital camera that I have been carrying around for the past five years, I didn't have any major…
Analyze This
I write this looking out on a misty and unseasonably mild night in Astoria, with clouds shrouding tall buildings and rain pounding my window, at a time of year when the city should be sweating in the middle of an unbearable New York summer. It goes to…
Foreign Exchange Students of Latency
Much of the debate around low latency, direct feeds and capacity issues has thus far focused on the equities and options markets, with warnings that these concerns will soon expand into other asset classes such as foreign exchange. But according to a new…
Pulling Back the Curtain
Editor’s Letter
The Cold Hard Facts
Editor’s Letter
The Great Race
In 1928, 199 runners participated in what the press of the day dubbed "The Bunion Derby," a 3,422.3-mile footrace between Los Angeles and New York. The race began on March 4, 1928 with only 55 runners crossing the finish line by May 26, 1928. The winner…
You Can't Always Get What You Want
... But you can get pretty close. And indexes are one way that investors can gain access to markets or sectors that they may not usually have exposure to. Some have questioned the meaningfulness of indexes as an indicator of the markets as the Dow Jones…
Editor's Letter - Risk is all around
The rate of change across the buy side - when inertia is finally overcome and change takes place - is often swift. The buy-side approach to risk is a case in point. It wasn't long ago that risk was a bit of a giggle for many buy-side firms, which, during…
It all comes down to data
If there is one thing you would have thought financial firms would have grasped by now, it's that having a centralised source of data - a golden copy if you will - is a good idea. By Emily Fraser . How many times have we heard Mike Atkin of the EDM…
Risk's rich tapestry
From time to time we at BST select topics for monthly features that prove challenging to contain within three or four pages. This month's article on real-time risk is a case in point; while the meatiest angles of the issue made it into the feature, some…
Servers, We Hardly Knew Ye
American literary icon Mark Twain once quipped, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Similarly, to say that a typical server in a broker-dealer's datacenter is a dead man walking would also be an exaggeration-but for how much longer?
The Party's Over
The first item on my agenda this week must be to say a big thank you to everyone who participated in last week's North American Financial Information Summit-from the speakers and participants who made the panel discussions the best that I've seen, to the…
Lessons from London
Two things I learned while attending the DWT 2009 conference in London last week: You can always leave it to the members of British Parliament to draw public anger away from investment bank bonuses in favor of a good old political corruption scandal over…
A Sneak Preview
No one can deny that the unprecedented events of the past year have made life incredibly tough for the financial industry as a whole, and for the market data professionals at consumer firms and vendors that serve the industry with its data needs-all of…
No Rest for the Wicked
I have always found April and May to be the two busiest months of the year. Maybe this is because winter is finally over and people have an added burst of energy. Then again, it could be that everyone is trying to accomplish everything they need to do…
Can I Get That to Go?
As I write this week's column, I'm packing for a weekend break in Boston, and wondering which restaurants I should splurge on: Should I stick to Beantown pub grub, or seek out something more civilized? We all know that fast food has advantages: it's…
This Is Not a Drill
As DWT goes to press, the World Health Organization (WHO) has not upgraded its swine flu pandemic alert status from Phase 5 to Phase 6. According to WHO, Phase 5 is characterized human-to-human transmission of the disease in two countries in a single WHO…
Data Strategies of Dragons, Tigers and Lions
For those readers who like stories about the financial data industry in Asia-Pacific, good news: We've got more for you from the region this week, following the conclusion of our Asia Roadshow with industry association FISD. (And by the way, spare a…