Opinion
The Continuing Story of Stimulus Bill
Last week, Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez, slugger for the New York Yankees baseball team, admitted to taking performance-enhancing substances while at the Texas Rangers. Many fans recoiled in shock and dismay, but others wondered how the buff-looking A-Rod had…
Automation Without Automatons
Automation has sometimes had a bad rap in our industry, especially when research reports raised the specter of trading algorithms displacing human traders in a Terminator -esque depiction of trading floors of the future. With a major economic stimulus…
Picking Your Poison
I've always found it prudent to stay away from holy wars, both the religious ones and the technological ones-be they Mac vs. PC, proprietary vs. open source, or Ethernet vs. Token Ring. These arguments always remind me of the conversations I had growing…
Trimming the Fat? Or Cutting to the Bone?
In the event that we're lucky enough not to know someone whose job has been directly affected by the financial crisis, the current layoff frenzy sweeping the entire economy serves as a reminder that although the recession may have been sparked by…
The Search for a Solution
EDITOR'S LETTER
Business Practice Patents on the Downswing
OPEN PLATFORM
Future Holds Many Uncertainties
OPEN PLATFORM
Get it Right the First Time Around
Firms with effective data management practices will be better suited to adhere to coming Gips requirements, say Eagle Investment Systems' Joseph McDonagh and Danielle Newland
Editor's Letter - Back in black
No, this editorial is not a poorly disguised attempt at paying homage to AC/DC's 1980 album of the same name.
CSAs set for dramatic change
The demise of Lehman Brothers in September last year was a wake-up call to asset managers and other investors that the single-broker aggregator model for managing commission sharing agreements (CSAs) has its flaws. Reliance on a single equity broker to…
New battle lines
If there's one thing I've learned about stock exchanges, it's that they love numbers. Usually record-breaking numbers. No matter how negative or doom-laden a set of financial results may be, exchanges nearly always manage to spin them so that somewhere,…
The $35,000 toilet bowl
At last, a fitting symbol of the unfortunate combination of malfeasance and stupidity crippling the financial services industry and pushing the world to the brink of economic depression: former Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain, freshly relieved…
Who Can You Trust?
Listening to the non-stop news on how the banking industry continues to hemorrhage billions of dollars on toxic debt, and the occasional $35,000 commode, I wonder what this will mean for technological innovation on Wall Street.
Trade Secrets
Shocking revelations broke last week that the US National Security Agency systematically spied on news organizations and collected data on ordinary citizens under the veil of national security. The amount of data alleged to have been collected is…
The Rise of the Boutiques
Nature truly abhors a vacuum and so do the markets. While Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit tolls the official death knell of the "supermarket model" for financial institutions as he cleaves his firm into Citigroup and Citi Holdings, many firms and vendors are…
Get on Your Bike and Buy a House... or Two
They say an Englishman's home is his castle. They also say that home is where the heart is. But over the past year, we've seen an awful lot of hearts broken and castles under seige-all for that symbol of success and security, a home of one's own.
The Added Value of Greening IT
Farmers know if they look after their land, it will look after them. Financial technologists need to adopt a similar approach as they nurture their silicon crops. As soon as recession struck, however, too many lost interest in ‘green IT', with its…
Filling Clara's Shoes
At press time, the business press was reporting that the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has sped up its search for a new CEO. According to the Financial Times , exchange insiders are looking for an outside candidate from a brokerage or technology firm to…
Will the Changes of 2008 Drive Innovation in 2009?
Welcome to 2009, which will be the Chinese year of the ox. Last year, of course, will be remembered as the year of the MTF.
Low-Latency Messaging 101
Designing consistently low-latency messaging isn't just about outright speed-to gain the biggest payoff, firms must also examine loss, monitoring, applications and more. By Mark Mahowald, founder and president, 29West
Starting the Year Right
It's that time of year again when we squint at ourselves in the bathroom mirror and promise that we'll shed those layers of winter insulation in time for the start of the swimsuit season, get more organized in our personal and professional lives and stop…
2008 is Dead; Long Live 2009
If proof were needed that people are keen to forget last year, with all of its crises and collapses, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 108 points on Dec. 31, the highest percentage rise on a year's last day of trading since 1974. But with 2008…