Once upon a time, cutting market data costs was easy. That’s because – and you’ve all seen the photo – traders took every service from every supplier, and each service needed a discrete telecommunications line. The result was an unwieldy – even messy – trading desk that was tricky to make use of and hugely expensive to operate.

The first wave of market data cost reductions unplugged a lot of those. Did we really need broker terminals from Cantor, Tullett, Liberty, FBI, Garban, Prebon, Mabon, Garvin Guybutler et al? Apparently so. But Telerate came long and put them on single screen. 7677 or Page 500 anyone? Genius.

Did we really need FX quotes on screens from Barclays, Citi and the rest? The data, yes; the screens, no. Reuters sorted it out with pages FXFX and WRLD. Meanwhile, consolidated data feeds allowed a single set of telecommunications lines to deliver data from all the world’s exchanges.

The dedicated service situation done and dusted, we move onto the next iteration.

Find out more in this special report.

Contributors:

  Market Data Cost Containment (802.9 KiB)