Opening Cross
Opening Cross: Consumer Power, Or the Power of Consumer Data?
It has always seemed ironic to me that the building at 628 Broadway in New York City, now an Urban Outfitters store, was once home to the New York Mercantile Exchange, trading the very materials used to make the clothes sold in the building’s current…
Opening Cross: Strength in Numbers—A History Lesson in Surviving The Data Purge
This week, our New York office has been gearing up for Purge Day, when we purge our desks of papers and items that we no longer need, and in return the company buys us a pizza lunch. In preparing for Purge Day, clearing out a closet of old copies of…
Opening Cross: Data Dilemmas Will Be Just Fine... If You Read the Fine Print
The financial markets are full of nostalgic tales about how deals used to be done on a handshake in the street. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately, depending on your point of view—those days are gone. Now, there’s a paper trail for everything—in fact,…
Opening Cross: Looking for Data (and Beer) in All the Right Places
Over the July 4 long weekend, I strolled around the new residential skyscrapers built along the Long Island City waterfront, and the redeveloped Gantry Plaza State Park overlooking the East River and the UN building. A few blocks inland, in a parking lot…
Opening Cross: Declare Your Independence from Traditional Data Uses
While the majority of Inside Market Data’s coverage has traditionally centered around the use of data to directly support trading activities—such as the transmission of prices via datafeeds or terminal displays to traders and trading applications—and…
Opening Cross: Forget ‘Keep it Simple, Stupid.’ Think KIDD—’Keep it Diversified, Dummy"
The market data business is increasingly governed by the need to diversify to respond to market and investment trends. Trading firms seeking exposure to new opportunities diversify the datasets they consume in search of the one that will give them an…
Opening Cross: What’s the Most Important Tool in Your Box?
The most useful article in my toolbox isn’t a wrench or a multi-tool: it’s a magic potion originally invented to support the space program, known today simply as WD40. Though its inventors may not have envisaged it becoming a household name, the spray…
Opening Cross: Make the Right Entrance and You Won’t Need a Graceful Exit
The ability to make a graceful exit is a talent I don’t have: ask anyone who’s participated in a fire drill with me. Nor, it seems, does the annual SIFMA technology exhibition, which straggles doggedly on this week, despite a much smaller exhibitor list…
Opening Cross: Data Can Fix Problems, Not Just Fixings
With the Libor-rigging scandal still fresh in our memories, pay gaps widening, and the current furor raging over the merits and fairness of high-frequency trading, it’s no surprise that the capital markets have something of a perception problem among the…
Opening Cross: Everything Comes at a Cost, Even Cloud
Any discussion of return on investment relies on the ability to measure two things: the return generated, and the amount spent to achieve it. In the world of market data, the question is, “How much money can I make as a result of buying and using dataset…
Opening Cross: Market Data Meteorologists: Forecasting the Many Faces of Cloud
Over 200 years ago, British chemist and amateur meteorologist Luke Howard laid the foundations for the classification of clouds used today, which, in their various forms, can resemble anything from gauzy material shrouding the sky, to flying saucers,…
Opening Cross: This Year’s Data Oscars Are Gonna Be Monster!
The latest big-budget Godzilla movie, which has just opened in the US may be unlikely to pick up any awards at next year’s Oscars, but is still my most-anticipated movie of 2014. I don’t consider myself at the mega-geek level of sci-fi aficionados (I…
Opening Cross: Testing Times? Consider Lifelong Data Learning
From the day we are born until the day we die, there are always opportunities to learn something new. Once upon a time, your learning largely ended whenever you left school, and training meant learning how not to get killed or maimed by whatever…
Opening Cross: Innovation Isn’t Just About Being Faster; It’s About Being Smarter and Better
The recent furor over high-frequency trading prompted by Michael Lewis’ book Flash Boys has led many to think that the only source of innovation in financial markets is making things faster, so that some kind of banker-sandman phantom can steal Granny’s…
Opening Cross: ‘Location, Location, Location’ Is Only Half the Battle
Wherever you feel at home, your location is ultimately only as good as the leverage it provides.
Opening Cross: This Valentine’s Day, Love Is in the Air… Or Is It Just More Snow?
Max harks back to the glory days of winter sports, and discusses how vendors are dealing with challenges of Olympic proportions in today's challenging markets.
Opening Cross: Market Data at the Movies
They say art imitates life. But does the art form of movie-making imitate data?
Opening Cross: Want Ketchup and Mustard on Your Data Dog?
What do sausages and market data have in common? A complex mix of ingredients, a balancing act of flavors to satisfy any hunger, a list of tasty add-ons, and a ravenous consumer base. So dig in!