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May 2013: Talk Can Prove Costly
Most vendors that service capital markets firms have top-notch offerings—anything less, and they wouldn't survive. So how do firms choose? Victor argues that civility can go a long way toward securing a deal.
Pine River's Rapid Current: CTO David Kelly
Expanding on famously effective relative-value strategies in fixed income and mortgage arbitrage, and operating with a fully global footprint, Minnesota’s Pine River Capital had an eye for a technologist who knows buy-side products, prime brokerage, and…
Max Bowie: A ‘Search Party’ to Find Missing Alpha in Financial Data
Although bleeding-edge technologies have focused on developing lightning-fast algorithms that cut humans out of the trading process, Max believes natural-language processing, and the often-overlooked fundamentals of search engine technologies, will play…
Michael Shashoua: Pricing’s Progress
A growing drumbeat for greater transparency and credibility in the sourcing of pricing and valuations data is stirring data professionals to improve functions serving these needs. Michael explains how the industry is calling the tune.
James Rundle: The Heat of the Moment
There’s often a pressure to be seen to be nimble and adaptive to the latest technologies, whether it’s cloud, mobility, Big Data or anything else. However, according to James, as budgets get leaner, it’s important for firms to assess whether technologies…
Anthony Malakian: HFT: Enemy of the State
With high-frequency trading existing in a state of uncertainty, the FBI is looking to join the SEC in examining the role algorithmic trading plays in the capital markets. Anthony says this is a good thing.
Client Reporting: The Road to Empowerment
Quarterly investment reports have long provided the sandwich filling between investment managers and their clients. Vendors have helped to automate the process, but Steve Dew-Jones considers how technology can take this process to the next level.
Regulation Webcast: Risk and Reward
Questions of extraterritoriality, market surveillance and the role of technology when it comes to dealing with new regulation, took precedence during a recent Waters webcast on the topic, along with elements of risk introduced by the sheer number of new…
What Lies Beneath: An Examination of Risk on the Buy Side (Part 2)
In part two of his examination of risk on the buy side, Anthony Malakian looks at how the regulatory environment is changing the way risk is managed and reported on, and delves into the buy versus build trade-off for risk-related technology.
Metrics Man: BNY Mellon CIO Suresh Kumar
Suresh Kumar moved to the US at 24 to find a job in technology. Along the way to becoming CIO at BNY Mellon, he directed the first online brokerage, built a laudable technology stack at Pershing, and installed a software company back home in southern…
Open Platform: IP Turrets Gain Traction
Traditionally, trading turret technology has lagged behind the world of enterprise telephony. But that is beginning to change, as IP trading turrets gain acceptance thanks to a number of key drivers. By Mark Gibbons
April 2013: The Naming of Parts
Are initiatives like the investment book of record, and post-VaR risk models really new? Or, Victor asks, have the old parts simply been given new names?
James Rundle: The Third Time’s the Charm
Talk about a third iteration of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive may be slightly premature, but it’s more than background noise at the moment. Given the weight of regulatory reform under way, James asks if the industry can take more…
Anthony Malakian: More Than Just Window Dressing
Investors are asking more pointed questions of traders and portfolio managers when it comes to risk management. Anthony hopes this will help make for a safer market.
Michael Shashoua: Solving For LEI
Those with vested interests in how the legal entity identifier implementation is carried out appear to be holding their ground, complicating the path to functionality. Michael channels a growing and raging online debate.
Max Bowie: Fighting Fragmentation: The Rising Cost of Connecting the Dots
Regulator-led trading market structure changes also require regulator-mandated changes to data consolidation. But without that—or at least, universal support from participants—Max wonders whether such initiatives are doomed to being expensive headaches…
High Stakes: An Examination of Risk Management on the Buy Side (Part 1)
In part one of his two-part feature, Anthony Malakian examines the state of risk management at the portfolio/trade-book level among buy-side firms. Part two will look at the middle- and back-office functions of risk across the buy side.
Front-Office Data Focus Spurs IBOR Push
Data management and aggregation are perennial challenges for all market participants. But for buy-side firms, elements of these disciplines have crystallized into an Investment Book of Record—an overview combining position-level data, cash flows,…
Lord's Tech as Savior: Michael Radziemski's Tech Vision Helps Lord Abbett Weather Hurricane Sandy
Michael Radziemski has spent the last decade helping to make Lord Abbett & Co.’s IT more mobile and scalable in order to drive the asset manager’s aggressive growth strategy. That strategy proved particularly valuable after Hurricane Sandy battered the…
Michael Shashoua: Identification, Linkage and Risk
Efforts to get comprehensive views of reference data, driven by risk management needs and mandates, are taking different shapes. Michael classifies these into the straightforward and the more subtle.
Anthony Malakian: The Nature of Privacy
Open debate has been stifled in recent years due to the prevalence of off-the-record conversations, even at conferences. Anthony says this hurts everyone, as accountability and dissemination of ideas are necessary for a thriving industry.
James Rundle: That Golden Touch
The data jungle of modern trading may be confusing, says James, but the UK’s Financial Services Authority is certainly going out with a bang after slamming a complex market manipulation scheme, mirroring wider efforts among national cops to become tech…
March 2013: It Takes a Thief to Catch a Thief
Recent moves by regulators to detect market abuse—including the SEC enlisting an HFT prop trading firm to build a monitoring system—are commendable. Victor argues they should go further and bring in people who have run afoul of regulations at some point…
Max Bowie: Thinking About Retail? Think Hard About Your Brand
With professional-grade services being targeted at investors and those that serve them, Max says the brand names of companies pitching sophisticated technology and data solutions—along with structural reform—will be more important than ever.