Ipreo, Xinhua, Telekurs

Trading software and data provider Ipreo last week launched a new global, cross-asset class institutional database based on its Bigdough equity and relationship management database with the addition of new fixed-income data and detailed information on investors in all types of corporate debt, municipal and sovereign debt, and structured products, as well as three new products. BD Advanced and BD Corporate provide a user interface for capital markets and investor relations professionals, respectively to the new cross-asset dataset, while BD Vision integrates the dataset with Ipreo's CRM application.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange has allied with Chinese news provider Xinhua News Agency, to cooperate on development of a financial information service for the exchange that will collect and distribute news via channels including XNA's Xinhua 08, to broaden participation and improve transparency on the exchange.

Global network provider BT last week announced an expansion of a deal with Swiss data provider Telekurs Financial to provide global connectivity services for Telekurs over BT's Radianz shared market infrastructure, enabling the vendor to reach the 10,500 financial sites connected to Radianz worldwide.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange has begun publishing data on the CBOE S&P 500 Implied Correlation Index, a new volatility-related benchmark index tied to two different option maturities, to provide the expected average correlation of components in the S&P 500 index. CBOE is publishing daily index values and correlation index input values each day after market close on its Web site, along with historical data back to 2003. The exchange plans to develop exchange-traded realized correlation products on the S&P 500, and to provide more volatility data via the Web site in future.

Toronto-based First Coverage, which provides a platform for information communication between buy-side firms and broker-dealers, last week announced $9 million in series B funding from venture capital firms including Commonwealth Capital Ventures, GrandBanks Capital and JLA Ventures. Officials say the money will be used to fund product development and geographical expansion.

European network connectivity provider Atrium Network has co-located its points of presence in hosting provider Equinix's London and Frankfurt datacenters, giving Equinix clients access to exchanges where Atrium has also located its POPs-including Deutsche Börse, Liffe, Borsa Italiana, OMX, BME and Chi-X-via the vendor's network.

Xinhua Finance News has begun providing regular profiles and reports on Singapore Exchange-listed companies that comprise the component stocks of the FTSE ST China Index, via a series of stock alerts posted on the SGX Web site.

Grid computing and switching software vendor Voltaire last week launched its Messaging Accelerator software that boosts performance of multicast data applications running on InfiniBand, such as Wombat or Reuters' RMDS, increasing throughput and cutting latency by up to 50 percent, compared to applications on Ethernet connections.