About a-team Marketing Services

A-Team Insight Blogs

AIM Software Automates Data Prep for Quant Modelling with Gain Quant DB

Subscribe to our newsletter

AIM Software has secured an initial three customers for it Gain Quant DB application that was originally designed to help its first customer automate data preparation for quant modelling. This customer, a large asset manager, is in production with the solution, while the second will be in production in the first quarter of next year and the third is starting work on implementation.

The asset manager needed a solution that would easily aggregate index and market data from multiple sources, including Thomson Reuters QA Direct and stock exchanges, and feed it into MatLab. It ran a selection process involving US and European software vendors in search of a solution, before asking AIM Software to develop a new business application on its Gain enterprise data management platform.

The resulting Quant DB application acts as a central research database that automatically collects and cross-references data from various sources, eliminating the risks of manual consolidation. Snapshots of market data are created several times a day using a vendor agnostic approach and are stored centrally and made available to all quants for the development and validation of models.

Vincent Goubert, lead business development, front office at AIM Software, explains: “Quant teams use a minimum of 10 different data sources for their research and these are expensive. They often design and develop their own tools using three or four data sources specific to a particular strategy. Each quant spends up to four hours every day running scripts on a desktop computer to acquire and cross-reference just the data he needs. This means that in a firm with a number of quants, no-one has a view across all the data sources. One quant may fix a problem in a data source and other quants may see the problem, but not know that it has been fixed.

“We have developed Quant DB as a central research database that can be shared between quants and used to feed data into MatLab where models can be back-tested. It helps firms gain efficiencies and reduce research time, it improves the accuracy of data used by quants in models and it keeps quants’ know-how in house, reducing operational risk if a quant leaves the firm.”

From an operational perspective, the asset manager in production with Quant DB says its quants are getting the data they need faster and can focus on creating better investment strategies. The manager also has less reliance on quants’ individual knowledge through the use of a shared solution.

Martin Buchberger, CEO of AIM Software, concludes: “There s a trend towards optimising front-office data tools. Gain Quant DB helps asset managers industrialise processes, launch new models faster and keep know-how inside.”

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: Taking a holistic approach to buy-side data management

As data volumes and complexity continue to increase, buy-side data management is at an inflection point. Manual processes and data siloes are no longer fit for purpose, and firms need to take a more holistic approach to data management that not only reduces manual intervention and cost, but also increases data access and accuracy for...

BLOG

Strategy and Tools for Tracking Licensed Data

By Neil Sandle, Head of Product Management, Alveo. Indices are tools used to track how asset classes, industry sectors, market segments, and a host of other physical and virtual sets of data perform over time. Leading examples can be found in the realm of financial services, in particular with stock markets where the FTSE 100,...

EVENT

ESG Data & Tech Summit London

The ESG Data & Tech Summit will explore challenges around assembling and evaluating ESG data for reporting and the impact of regulatory measures and industry collaboration on transparency and standardisation efforts. Expert speakers will address how the evolving market infrastructure is developing and the role of new technologies and alternative data in improving insight and filling data gaps.

GUIDE

ESG Handbook 2023

The ESG Handbook 2023 edition is the essential guide to everything you need to know about ESG and how to manage requirements if you work in financial data and technology. Download your free copy to understand: What ESG Covers: The scope and definition of ESG Regulations: The evolution of global regulations, especially in the UK...