The National Securities Clearing Corp. will soon launch a service called the Obligation Warehouse, which will offer its broker-dealer participants an automated way of reducing operating costs – and risk – with trades involving equities, corporate bonds, municipal bonds and unit investment trusts.
The first phase of New York Stock Exchange's next-generation trading floor went live this week, bringing the upstairs downstairs.
There's good news for hedge funds -- at least, for those able to meet the increasingly rigorous standards of institutional investors in critical areas such as risk management, transparency and operations.
The call was great: A "consolidated data pool should be surveilled by a unified single regulator,’’ the head of FINRA said in late October. “A single regulator that can bring the best technology, the best people, and a unified set of rules needs to be empowered." How's the empowering going?
Whether government regulators or market centers or other self-regulatory organizations should conduct trading surveillance of our markets may not be the ultimate question.
In this Monday's issue, S.I.N. will examine why the toughest part about data storage is not the storage-- it’s the retrieval.
A consumer financial protection agency may be important. But protection from weapons that can produce mass financial destruction -- derivatives -- is more urgent.
How are you supposed to deal with the "unprecedented stimulus" that is both strengthening the U.S. economy and making it more fragile, at the same time?
James Chanos says a company’s cash flow, the quality of its balance sheet, its potential to perform well, drive equity values. Efforts to prop up stock prices where the fundamentals will not sustain them will inevitably fail.
Connecticut is not waiting for Congress to come up with legislation requiring hedge funds to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and open their books to inspection. The state that is the capital of the hedge fund industry wants to take fund regulation into its own hands.
As companies line up to bid for Interactive Data Corp, the firm pushes forward with new technology initiatives. Q&A With Interactive Data EVP Jeff Banker.
The Fed wants to take on the role of systematic risk overseer in the U.S. if not the globe. And it needs data to analyze to do it. How will it get it?
If you listen to Allan T. Hackney at John Hancock Financial Services, social networking is relevant “here and now.” And critical to your future.
Market data numbers are expected to continue on an upward trajectory, reaching unprecedented levels never before imagined. With this in mind, industry experts agree it’s time to start planning ahead.
Seconds count – and can be worth millions of dollars, almost instantly, in today’s fast-paced world of high-speed trading.
Since the financial crisis blew through the securities industry, the impact on IT systems has been dramatic. In one key area, pre-trade compliance technology, the crisis has spurred a transition from option to near-necessity.
You think you have just achieved the American dream by producing a piece of software that the securities industry needs, wants and has to use. Nothing can go wrong, right? Not exactly. You have to protect your dream first.
The right way to spur electronic delivery of annual reports and other documents to shareholders is ... to create better, slimmer print documents, prove their value to readers and then let them opt to get the "excruciating detail" online.
Despite the early warnings and increased focus on risk management, the events of the current crisis exposed the interconnectedness of all market participants.
Thomson Reuters' recent acquisition of Aegisoft “rounds out our whole proposition for the desktop across the entire transaction workflow for exchange-traded markets.”
Regulatory and licensing issues are delaying adoption of cloud computing and online, on-demand computing, known as Software as a Service (SaaS), by securities firms. Nevertheless, as rules are worked out, these technologies should take hold over time.
There are only three days left until ticker symbols for U.S. options expand from five characters to as many as 21. Are you ready?
Companies on Wall Street and off have long been required and gotten used to the requirement that their financial condition be audited every quarter and every year by independent, professional eyes. Don't be surprised, however, if annual reports and filings with the SEC in the not-too-distant future include a second opinion.
As firms continue to add new trading areas and struggle to meet regulatory requirements, high performance databases are becoming increasingly vital.
If there's one thing the recent financial crisis taught us, it's that the status quo is clearly not good enough. Not for our markets. Not for investors. And, not for our economy.
It’s widely recognized that politics – particularly as practiced by Congress --plays a central role in the outcome of financial regulatory reform. But in a January report from Boston-based research firm Aite Group titled “Smart Regulation,” author and senior Aite analyst Paul Zubulake goes a step further.
Leaving politics aside, he writes, “The key component of all the discussion is how regulators can use technology to prevent another crisis.” …
Operations executives, data analysts, valuation experts and IT staff will need to brace themselves to do even more work to do when it comes to valuing their securities correctly this year. Simply striking a correct price on assets held by a fund manager, bank or brokerage firm won’t be enough.
Your securities firm operates in 30 countries. That means the email you exchange with customers, business partners and service suppliers has to abide by the storage, retrieval and compliance laws of 30 nations. Right? Wrong.
Market data appliance company Exegy is working with Essex Radez to relaunch a Web site that tracks real-time market data rates every second.
It’s not only the courts and the Securities and Exchange Commission that are looking over brokers’ shoulders when they communicate electronically. FINRA has now weighed in with guidance to member firms on how they use social networking sites – including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs – in communicating with the public.
Last year, Bloomberg became the first data vendor to provide its unique, proprietary identification codes for stocks, bonds, options contracts and other financial instruments for free on a new website. But that doesn’t mean that Bloomberg wants to give everything away for free.
Wall Street should always be about finding the systems and means to fund the formation of new firms and the growth of existing ones. Or make yourself and your customers wealthier. So they’re ready to put more of their money into the strategies and companies you’re trading in. This is why speed matters.
The securities transaction tax is one initiative that threatens to throw sand directly into the gears of the marketplace.
Next Monday’s issue of S.I.N. will include two features about the use of middleware— the plumbing that helps software applications communicate over a network.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) is wasting no time getting back on its feet after a dust-up with the American Securitization Forum (ASF) that led to the termination of their eight-year-old affiliation earlier this month.
U.S. financial firms aren’t the only ones who need to worry about how to shore up their data management skills to comply with potential legislation for monitoring enterprisewide risk.
Want some sobering numbers on just how intransigent this non-Depression economy has become? Want to argue about whether we are going to face a “lost decade” like Japan? Maybe it’s already been lost.
Data centers are the new keystone for U.S. equity trading, said Tabb Group senior analyst and report author Kevin McPartland in a study released this month, “U.S. Equity Technology 2010: The Sell Side Perspective.”
Let it be noted at the outset that Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein did not use the term "Act ..." or "Acts of God" in describing the events that led to the financial crisis of 2008 to the present. But he still has said bankers are doing ... God's work.
Step aside, Securities and Exchange Commission. The Managed Funds Association – the main hedge fund trade association – is launching an ambitious data collection initiative aimed at finally getting its arms around the true size and nature of the industry.
The Securities and Exchange Commission this morning (Wednesday, January 13, 2010) moved to ban "naked access" to electronic markets, saying it will require some kind of pre-trade risk controls on all orders. Here's why slowing down real-time trading makes sense.
Proxy reform. It’s on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s list of initiatives this year but just what it should spell will likely continue to be one of the most heated topics to cross the regulator’s desk.
On New Year's Eve, Securities Industry News quietly introduced the FIN50 Index, to capture by the second just how Wall Street itself is faring. Its 50 component stocks are all publicly traded companies who make Wall Street tick.
It’s that time where forecasts abound. Wall Street is breathing easier, after its brush with death in 2008. But the Dow Jones Industrial Average has hardly changed since first crossing 10,000 on March 19, 1999. Let’s see what you forecast for the next 10 years. Then go back 10 years to see where things were a decade ago.
The race has begun. Algorithmic trading and other types of electronic trading with a wider range of liquidity providers will mean a lot more ticks flowing through applications, at record speeds. But can you afford all the data about markets you want, to support the trading?
Some times, it’s better not to know what you don’t know about financial markets. Then, you might just do things right.
For journalists covering the traditionally secretive hedge fund industry, opportunities to meet with leading hedge fund executives are few and far between. An exception: The Managed Fund Association’s annual networking conference, which features a large exhibit hall, first-rate speakers, and plenty of opportunities to talk with some of the industry’s best-known names. Until this year.
As financial firms consider just how to keep their budgets lean and mean in 2010, they will be facing pretty tough challenges in complying with the requirements of the so-called financial reform.
Particularly when it comes to managing the data involved.
When you break it down, what high-frequency trading is breaking down each trading day into the equivalent of a year of trading (or, you could contend, multiple years). And, you cash out, at the end of each year, er, each day.
As the gathering storm over financial regulatory reform approaches, this poem is dedicated to folks who fear Lieberman may provide a storm all his own.
Canadian trading venues are establishing connectivity partnerships and seeking to cut latency, providing investors with even more options in terms of market models and lower trading costs.
States are increasingly trying to pull a fast one on investors. In fact, you could say those investors could soon feel cheated on escheatment.
On the ground floor of the building in which this is being typed, Oliver Stone has set up shop. Barely a stone’s throw from the New York Stock Exchange and in direct eyeshot of the Statue of Liberty, the movie producer is at it again. He’s shooting Wall Street 2. But he may be looking for "villainy" in the wrong place.
When industry lobbyists target a Congressional proposal for defeat, the roar can be deafening.
If there’s one piece of new regulation you can probably expect to see come out of the Securities and Exchange Commission early next year, it will be a set of rules on how “sponsored access” has to be controlled. It’s not too late to determine who controls the controls.
The European Commission seems to think that identification codes for financial instruments should be obtained for free.
The European Commission’s investigation into the licensing of identification codes for financial instruments by Standard and Poor’s CUSIP Global Services and Thomson Reuters has aptly generated several basic and underlying questions that have been long overdue.
In the $330 billion auction rate securities (ARS) scandal, when the market froze up after customers were told the risky securities were as safe as cash, state regulators took the initiative in winning money back for ordinary investors, and holding the wrongdoers accountable.
This is the first post of Trading Spaces, a weekly commentary that will provide you with fresh analysis of industry trends -- and an opportunity to engage in thought-provoking conversation about the state of trading technology.
If the securities industry is determined enough, it could easily include algorithms that track every use, every transfer of an investor’s dollars between accounts at an investment firm and how those dollars were used. And block Ponzi schemes like Bernie Madoff's or even Tom Petters' from getting off the ground.
No matter what happens with the rest of this Greatest Recession Since the Depression let’s stop trying to blame it on runaway quantum finance. Math is not the problem. It gives answers. It provides precision (sometimes illusory). And, translated into computer coding, it runs endlessly and tirelessly. But somebody had to make it up in the first place. And maintain it. And manage it.
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