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Lessons Learned
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks that took place on Sept. 11, 2001. In the wake of those tense days, it's easy to forget that nearly everyone was expecting the next shoe to drop. There was talk of dirty bombs, increased…
The Building BRICs of a Global Data Strategy
Sometimes as I sit writing this column late at night, I enjoy-or rather, endure-a swig or two of guarana soda from Brazil to stave off exhaustion and give me a little boost in the wee hours. And high-caffeine soda isn't the only Brazilian import that the…
Desktops: The Next Generation
It's always impressive to see how popular science fiction programs set the design bar when it comes to technology. One of the documentaries on the subject, How William Shatner Changed the World , examines the impact that the Star Trek writers and prop…
The Most Valuable Part of Your Data Business?
We often hear how market data is the third-highest cost base for today's financial firms, behind only real estate and staff salaries. But do we focus on that third cost at the expense of the second-the people that make it all work?
Are You Ready to Be Spun Off?
The saying goes that life is what happens when you are making other plans. Sell-side financial technologists are certainly experiencing life to the fullest these days. Over the last several years the technology trend was to tear down silos and roll out…
Setting the Record Straight
In the final scene of Billy Wilder's classic movie Some Like it Hot , when Jack Lemmon discards his wig and reveals to ageing playboy Joe E. Brown-who has been unwittingly wooing Lemmon-that he's a man disguised as a woman, Brown merely shrugs and says, …
The Dog Days of Summer
Does anything good happen in August? As I write this, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing are under threat from the Turkistan Islamic Party. At the same moment, Russian tanks are rolling into the capital of the breakaway Georgian province of Southern…
The Case for Consolidated Market Feeds
In this age of low-latency direct feeds, consolidated market feeds such as the CTS, CQS and Opra are viewed more as necessary evils than sexy must-haves. Yet not only do these feeds remain basic essentials for firms to gain a consolidated view of an…
Who's Number Three?
It seems SunGard CEO Cris Conde is looking to upend the troika of the major standalone sell-side order management system (OMS) providers with SunGard's announcement late last week that it intends to purchase competitor GL Trade.
Portfolio Desks On the Block
For the past few months NYSE Euronext has been working with Pragma Financial Systems to provide floor traders on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) access to trading algorithms that will put their orders on par with outside orders ( see story, this issue…
Come Together
I'm not good at dealing with change-at least according to my last performance review-and the only major change I have to deal with is Inside Market Data 's upcoming move to new offices closer to Wall Street next month. So spare a thought for those data…
Bloomberg's All-Star Deal
In the lead-up to last week's annual All-Star baseball game in New York, a row erupted between Red Sox pitcher Jonathan Papelbon and the New York press corps about who was the better closer and should end the game-Papelbon or revered Yankees pitcher…
Attack of the Pods
Having covered technology for several years, it should come as no surprise that I'm a slight science fiction geek. When I hear the term "pods," I don't think of Steve Jobs' musical creations, but rather Donald Sutherland's shriek from the 1978 remake of…
No News Is Good News?
As I stumbled past the long line of technophiles camped out to purchase their iPhone 3Gs, it reminded me a bit of my childhood growing up with a large extended Irish-American family prior to the ubiquity of e-mail, texting and instant messaging. My…
There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
... But is there such a thing as free market data? For retail investors, yes, as a result of recent initiatives to bring real-time data to the masses by exchanges including Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, which both recently launched freely…
Passports, Please
Every time I land at London Heathrow Airport, there are two things I know I'm not going to enjoy. First is schlepping a week's worth of luggage and a laptop bag through that underground corridor from Terminal 3 to the Heathrow tube stop on the Piccadilly…
What Commuters Can Learn From Market Data
Regular IMD readers will know how I like to use analogies to illustrate issues relating to market data. So, with many of our US colleagues heading off for long weekends away to celebrate the July 4 holiday, I'd like to share some musings that occurred to…
The Longest Day
Somehow it seems appropriate: Just 10 days after the summer solstice-the longest day of the year-there are press reports that Deutsche Börse is mulling the idea of opening trading on its Xetra platform earlier in the morning to compete with the upstart…
Industry Cuts Signal Need for Quality Data
Last week's firing of NY Mets baseball team manager Willie Randolph elicited a wave of disgust from New Yorkers, shocked at what they perceive as a near-sighted, reactionary response to short-term fluctuations in performance. Odd, I thought, that one man…
Where Do Old Acronyms Go to Die?
It's remarkable what you find when you start packing up to move offices. I recently uncovered a cache of old articles circa 2003 heralding the triumphant return of straight-through processing (STP) after the implosion of the Global Straight Trough…
Consolidating Positions
This year's SIFMA show may not have grabbed the headlines of years gone by with extravagant deals or earth-shattering benchmark claims, but represented a year of vendors bedding-in systems and consolidating their positions-perhaps reflecting the…
Hippies, Flying Pigs and Speed
After 28 Technology Management Conferences and Exhibits hosted by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Sifma), you'd think that they would start blurring together. This year's event at the Hilton New York in Midtown Manhattan,…
That Time of Year
If it's June, it means that the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Assoc-iation's (Sifma's) Technology Management Conference and Exhibition is upon us. For three days this week, financial technologists will meet, mingle and schmooze with…
Event Processing Tries to Lose its Complex
It's always sad when youngsters spread their wings and leave the nest. Even now, one of the market data industry's offspring, having gone through early years smothered with attention, through its teens filled with growing pains and no one understanding…