The Top 10 Features from Waters in 2016

But these features ─ which look at everything from new regulatory requirements to new uses of technology ─ generated the most interest from our readers in 2016. We hope you enjoy them.

A Multi-Layered Look at Blockchain
For the October issue, Waters looked at three areas relating to blockchain, and distributed ledgers as a whole: the digital currencies that are proliferating in the space, the private equity and venture funding funneling into the space and, finally, an argument that blockchain is being overhyped. 

Deutsche Bank, BNY Mellon and Santander, along with inter-dealer broker Icap, were the latest to join the trend when they announced their partnership with UBS and Clearmatics to create a Utility Settlement Coin that could be used to clear and settle financial trades on a distributed ledger. Dan DeFrancesco speaks to those involved in the project, as well as others in the industry, about what still needs to be done for such a significant adoption to take place.

More than $1 billion to date has been invested in blockchain, but what is it about the technology that is really attracting this money? And, Emilia David asks, will it last?

Anthony Malakian talks to several capital markets executives to determine whether irrational exuberance has overtaken common sense.
 

Our Most Read Story in 2016: Julia
Seven years ago, four individuals came together to create a fast and expressive programming language to compete with the likes of R, Matlab, Python and about three dozen other dynamic tools. Their work gave birth to the Julia programming language. Anthony Malakian takes an inside look at how some finance firms and economists are using Julia, and examines why 2017 could be a year of significant growth for the upstart.
 

A Deep Dive Into Agile Development
Victor Anderson produced a two-part feature expoloring the benefits and challenges around Agile development, which is gradually taking hold on Wall Street. While some firms have enjoyed Agile's benefits for an appreciable period of time, there is still some way to go before they can legitimately claim to be fully agile.

In part one, Victor looks at the Agile premise and what such a strategy might look like within a capital markets firm on a day-to-day basis. In part two, while some firms have embraced Agile to the extent that it underpins the development and delivery work supporting all their business processes from the front to the back office, others prefer to opt for it on a case-by-case basis.
 

The CAT Evolves 
The Consolidated Audit Trail took a major step toward finally being implemented, when at the end of April, the SEC released a notice and voted to publish it for public comment. And while regulators might hang their hat on the announcement as a big achievement, Dan DeFrancesco explores how there is still more work to be done.
 

The Machines Are Learning
Many firms want to attach their names to the machine-learning groundswell, but few are producing tangible results. Anthony Malakian looks at how machine learning and various AI techniques are helping capital markets firms, and where there is still more hype than reality.

Juicing Liquidity in Fixed Income
John Brazier examines a new breed of collaboration-focused alternative models that concentrate on providing bond market participants with standardized, structured information to light the path to liquidity.
 

The Great Unbundling
The unbundling of research and execution functions is one of the most widely anticipated and debated pieces of regulation amid the storm of measures introduced by the European Commission that will have a significant impact on how the buy side and sell side operate. Ahead of its implementation in 2018, Aggelos Andreou takes a deep dive into the concerns, benefits, and changes that unbundling will inevitably bring. 

The Turret Transition
Trading turrets, and the trader-voice space, have been slow to evolve. But, as Emilia David finds, new technologies challenging traditional turrets are gaining steam and are changing how trading floors will look in the future. 
 

Opening Up Technology
Financial firms have grown more comfortable with the use of open source in recent years. Dan DeFrancesco speaks to those on the buy and sell side about the necessary steps they take to put their firm in the best position to succeed using open source, and what the future holds for the space.
 

APIs Take Center Stage
Application programming interfaces (APIs) have long been the fundamental glue providing systems and data connectivity throughout the capital markets, often going unnoticed as technologies that promise widespread disruption are given greater attention. But with the continued growth of web-based technologies, John Brazier looks at how APIs are now gaining traction beyond the historic models for connectivity.