Open-source
Taming the Wild, Wild Web
In the last couple of years, the Internet has become pervasive and global, spawning an exciting generation of Web 2.0 applications like podcasts, blogs, wikis, P2P social networking, Semantic Web mashups, and 3D virtual worlds. The latest consumer…
A fragmented future
The introduction of multi-lateral trading facilities, crossing networks and electronic communication networks are starting to hurt Europe's well-established exchanges. This phenomenon is likely to become somewhat more acute with the recent introduction…
Specialization Takes Command
Electronic trading is getting more difficult. There are just too many new technologies and strategies to choose from, with algorithms everywhere-hundreds of them-at every stage of the investment and trading process. The number of venues has also exploded…
Taking the random route
Traditional ways of measuring investment skill range from the straightforward (looking at the portfolio’s performance relative to the rest of the market over the last one, five and 10 years) to the quant-driven, through to the full machinery of…
MiFID's New World Order
As the Nov. 1 MiFID deadline draws near, it is becoming clear that it will take much more time and work to clarify what the new rules mean, and how investors, managers and brokers will behave in the post-MiFID world order. By Bill Haney, European…
Need for Speed: Advice in the Thin Client/Fat Client Debate
Developing a trading system is like trying to build a race car: The faster you want it to go, the larger-and potentially heavier-the engine can become. This is the dilemma of building a trading system: the need for speed versus the desire to avoid…
Pre-trade TCA: New challenges, new technology
Stewart Eisenhart looks at a recent Aite Group report – Multi-asset portfolio systems: the buy side’s new pied piper – and concludes that although there is a sizable market in the US and UK for such systems, vendors are likely to find greater demand from…
The Hard Way
Accelerating data volume growth coupled with a relentless drive for lower latency is outstripping performance increases in the software infrastructures that financial firms rely on to handle market data. As a result, infrastructure architects are turning…
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet? Simon Morris and Ash Saluja, partners at CMS Cameron McKenna, look at Mifid and its various permutations for buy-side organisations from a legal perspective.
Bandwidth's silver bullet
The expectations of regulators and investors of best execution are forcing broker/dealers on both sides of the Atlantic to evaluate their connectivity and supporting infrastructure. John Panzica argues that ethernet technology has the potential to…
Beachy keen
BST Columnist Phil Albinus prepares for his August vacation by taking a tongue-in-cheek look at a number of buy-side technology issues likely to be addressed in the second half of 2007, including preparing Mifid ‘alibis’ in anticipation of your firm’s…
Beneficiary-Driven Solutions
Business transformation is akin to making a silk purse from a sow's ear— long pursued, but elusive. The trite "it is about people, not technology" masks a hard reality. To reap the potentially rich harvest envisioned by major business shifts demands a…
Essential ingredients
City Practitioners’ Neil Hookway address the numerous communications challenges facing hedge funds and their technology providers when establishing the technical parameters of new projects.
Where Is Grid Going?
For most of us, grid computing is a stateless network of compute nodes used to split and run complex analytic processes in parallel to reduce elapsed run times. However, for a small but growing number of market participants it is the next-generation,…
Market Proliferation: A Paradox of Choice?
Unprecedented growth in the number and variety of trading venues will challenge even the bravest market participants.
Finucane's Theory of Evolution
Consolidated datafeed dinosaurs are evolving to escape the same fate as data dodos. By Don Finucane, vice president of product management and marketing, Interactive Data Real-Time Services
Blueprint for the future
The correlation between a buy-side firm's technology and its ability to trade fast and efficiently has never been stronger. Amy Muddimer explains this dependency by scrutinising technologies on the buy side that underpin the continuous drive for straight…
Multi-asset class trading systems...still a pipe dream?
Paul Miller and Jonathan Hammond discuss the current shortcomings of multi-asset class trading systems initiatives, and propose a new approach to this growing conundrum which involves meaningful collaboration between technology producers and consumers
Under the Surface
The growing use of volatility surfaces is bringing greater transparency to complex instruments, but is creating significant technology storage and processing requirements. By Matt Skinner, a director at cross-asset data management vendor Xenomorph
Complexity driving automation
The global investment management industry is continually evolving in terms of sophistication and the complexity of instruments traded by buy-side firms. This, in turn, is driving the development of back-office technologies designed to process these…
In search of the perfect hybrid
There has been significant consolidation in the transfer agency space in the last few years, to the point where a handful of providers now account for the bulk of the global buy-side industry. But as David White explains, not all transfer agents are…
Down the Mifid Rabbit Hole
Alice heard the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' … Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with…
Shadow Complex
Demand for independent pricing shadows the rise of complex structured finance transactions as regulatory scrutiny increases. By JR Rieger, vice president of Global Evaluations, Standard & Poor's
The middle way
Tony Swei of Tradar looks at the benefits and potential pitfalls for hedge funds that have decided to outsourcing certain middle-office functions including accounting