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The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

Not Much Ado About …

Something or nothing? I guess it depends on one’s POV. I’m referring to today’s deadline for implementing SEC rule 15c3-5 – aka the Market Access Rule – which bans naked sponsored access. While parts of that rule – related to aggregated risk and covering fixed income securities – now do not need to be complied...

A Low-Latency Rock Battle on Bleecker …

We’re always happy to help out an old friend and a good cause. In this case, music loving Joe Lalicata – one-time Lava Trading and Merrill exec, and now Direct Edge’s partnership’s guy – who is holding a friendly battle of the bands tomorrow night at Kenny’s Castaways on Bleecker Street. Proceeds to the Wounded...

Two Years in Austin – the Low-Latency Capital of the World?

OK, I jest a bit with that headline. But it was two years ago this weekend that my good friend Allan Nixon (he used to work alongside me at Waters many years ago) and I rented a U-Haul and took a road trip from Brooklyn to Austin, Texas. In the back of the van were...

The Business Benefits of Lowering Latency – What Are They?

There’s much talk of late about whether investment in reducing latency is worth it. OK, that’s expressing this issue very simply, but for sure there is more focus on determining actual business benefits resulting from lowering latency, and the associated technology costs. One global investment bank turned to Sumerian to help them bridge business and...

Low Latency and Windows – Strange But True?

Reading through the latest from TS-Associates, it was interesting to learn that their Application Tap function now supports Windows, from the makers of Xbox.  It got me thinking about how widespread the adoption of Windows is for low-latency applications, so I asked the company’s CEO Henry Young for his thoughts. “There is a surprising amount...

Market Data Peaks Smashes Through 5 Million!

Wow!  My favourite website MarketDataPeaks.com hit 5.12 million messages/second – a new record – on June 30.  In part, the new peak is because the service is now including NYSE’s OpenBook Ultra, which only recently got added with an update to the site.  Also, the update fixed an issue with OPRA, which was being under...

A Low-Latency Lap of SIFMA

Well, I’ve actually completed a few laps of the exhibits over the past couple of days. There’s no doubt the show was once again smaller than before, but the world of low latency was still pretty well represented. Here are some notes from what I’ve seen … * Content providers were few and far between....

Dell Touts Performance of its TIBCO FTL Stack

The low-latency arms race continues … Dell used SIFMA to promote the performance of its servers running TIBCO’s latest FTL (Faster Than Light) messaging middleware. The bottom line: 2.5 million messages/second processed with a mean latency of 13 microseconds. At the show, Dell execs pointed to a just-released STAC-M2 benchmark report, only the second to...

STAC Points to Everest Boost

Via a report sponsored by data feed handler specialists SR Labs, the benchmarkers at STAC have just announced data for initial tests run on Intel’s recently-introduced Everest chip. Compared to Intel’s standard Westmere chip, one data point suggests a 22% reduction in mean latency. Everest – or Intel’s Xeon X5698 – is a dual core...

NYSE Technologies Announces Community Platform; IaaS Play for Capital Markets

With the announcement today of its Capital Markets Community Platform, NYSE Technologies is bringing cloud computing into the world of electronic trading and low latency. Well, kind of. Already an established provider of hosted, managed services, such as its Superfeed data feed, and its Risk Management Gateway for pre-trade risk controls, the vendor – a...