By Maryann Houglet, Senior Vice President, Strategic Consulting, A-Team Group

In an age of ever-increasing demands for transparency, the spread of alternative investment strategies into the institutional asset management world means major data management and operational pain for more firms – and greater pressure on data and data management vendors to respond

On January 25 2008, SIFMA’s Asset Management Group announced that D.E. Shaw had been unanimously approved as a member. “The approval marks a milestone in that D.E. Shaw is the first hedge fund member of SIFMA,” read the official statement. On the same day, US stock markets closed sharply lower after some recovery, because of fears that, yet again, prominent hedge funds were in trouble.

READ THE REST

By Pete Harris, President Americas and Editor-at-Large, A-Team Group

Complex event/event stream processing is one hot area right now, and it’s predicted to get hotter still. So to which applications is this technology best suited, and what are your options when it comes to CEP/ESP implementation?

Truth be told, software engineers in the financial markets have been writing code to handle events since the year dot. A price update from an exchange, a trading limit that gets broken, a stock split. All are examples of events that might cause some software process to take place.

READ THE REST

By James Hartley, Vice President, Research, A-Team Group

Client and counterparty identification is a vital activity undertaken independently by every financial institution on the planet, yet despite the challenges created by the lack of a universal standard to smooth external communication about these entities, the IBEI initiative has stalled. So what will it take for the compelling need for the International Business Entity Identifier to be realised?

Face it – you need to know the financial trustworthiness and legal standing of your business associates. To ignore this simple axiom of trade and commerce could be tantamount to felonious collaboration or capital accessory. Probably not good.

READ THE REST

By James Hartley, Vice President, Research, A-Team Group

The “standard” data models landscape is an unholy mess – and it’s up to you as practitioners to sort it out

This article isn’t about the size “00” models on runways and advertising globally – even the fashion industry is voluntarily putting an end to that. Instead, let’s focus on the data and processing models that drive your business and affect your pay cheque. Paying attention?

READ THE REST

By Maryann Houglet, Senior Vice President, Strategic Consulting, A-Team Group

Corporate actions have officially entered the enterprise data management fold, but how long will it take to change behaviour and get real results out to end users?

Have you ever wished corporations would maintain the status quo and not continually announce change? This would certainly simplify workflow for those that handle corporate actions and announcements – usually the operations departments of financial institutions. Corporate actions cover a lot of territory and carry a lot of risk. They are homogeneous neither across items nor across geographic boundaries. Holders of the underlying assets benefit from the diligence institutions apply to this data. Recognising the work that corporate actions entail, one manager told A-Team: “Payments are the easy part.”

READ THE REST

By Christopher Morris

What are the factors to be considered when setting up an electronic derivatives trading business in Asia?

At the annual Singapore FOW conference back in October 2005, delegates were awash with trepidation and excitement in equal measure. The Singapore Exchange (SGX) had made the strategic decision to move all legacy open outcry trading across to an electronic trading platform. A former floor broker wandered around the exhibition floor trying to convince every delegate he met. “I don’t know why SGX are closing the floor,” he said. “It might have worked in Europe, but Asia has a whole different way of doing business.”

READ THE REST

By Pete Harris, President Americas and Editor-at-Large, A-Team Group

Web 2.0 is gaining momentum in the wider world, but what might it mean for the financial markets?

Remember the dot com bubble of the late 1990s, as the internet spawned myriad websites, pushed new business models and made millionaires out of many tech geeks? Well, for some of those geeks, it’s happening all over again, with the focus this time on interactive applications relying heavily on users themselves forming part of the offering. It’s called Web 2.0 and it’s gaining momentum on what will surely be a ride as wild as we all saw last time.

READ THE REST

By James Hartley, Vice President, Research, A-Team Group

A quick look into the activities of the FIX community, and the algorithmic trading products that refer to the specification, reveals some very interesting trends that will affect its future – and yours

The FIX protocol has generally been accepted as the de facto “standard” for electronic trading. Yes, there are other such protocols that can be used for a variety of specific instrument classes – many of them proprietary and some of them “open”. Yes, there are other messaging standards that complement, extend or even enable some of the same conversations that FIX conveys. And sure, FIX isn’t completely pervasive in the industry – yet. But no other effort within the financial services community has the momentum and general backing of such a large block of players. New participants are joining or existing members are increasing their FIX involvement, thus new FIX activities are commencing – and more importantly completing – with some frequency.

READ THE REST

By Maryann Houglet, Senior Vice President, Strategic Consulting, A-Team Group

There is no question that “bottom up” has gone “top down” when it comes to next generation reference data management. But is the support there?

As the industry addresses and resolves tactical data management issues with central data solutions, firms will leverage reference data into strategic business decisions – enterprise wide. Senior managers will look to data management solutions for top down, enterprise views of exposure and risk, as well as to provide scalability for future business needs.

READ THE REST

By Stéphane Leroy, Head of Global Sales & Marketing at Quant House

The financial community must make a successful transition from screen-based to program-based trading

There has been an ongoing revolution in trading since the first exchanges went fully electronic back in the 1990s. At that time, screenbased trading applications began to be created to meet the needs of users regarding reliability, speed and volumes. Those applications rapidly covered a wide scope of work in order to enhance day to day tasks related to market data processing, market research, risk management, order management and clearing and settlement.

READ THE REST