Pico, the global provider of financial markets technology services, has partnered with BMLL, the independent provider of historical data and analytics, to offer an integrated solution that combines real-time and historical market data to support research, liquidity analysis, and trading optimisation.
The collaboration leverages Pico’s real-time data feeds and global infrastructure alongside BMLL’s Level 3, 2, and 1 historical data offerings. The combined solution is designed to help financial institutions, including quantitative analysts, banks, and brokers, move seamlessly from research and back-testing to live trading, reducing complexity and enhancing performance.
Under the partnership, Pico will provide raw real-time and historical data feeds that integrate with BMLL’s harmonised data sets, which are derived from raw exchange data with nanosecond timestamp precision. This data harmonisation will allow clients to conduct in-depth analysis and gain actionable insights into market dynamics across different timeframes.
The joint solution has already been deployed by a large European hedge fund expanding into U.S. equities. By using the integrated data, the fund has improved market data efficiency, flexibility, and time to market while optimising its trading strategies.
Commenting on the partnership, Jarrod Yuster, Chairman, Founder and CEO of Pico, said: “Integrating Pico’s solutions with BMLL allows quants and high-performance traders to streamline their workflows with a unified set of technologies as they move through their journey from research to testing and into production. This solution directly addresses the growing demand for comprehensive front-office trading technology, streamlining the entire process with precision and efficiency.”
The synergies between Pico’s global infrastructure – which includes more than 50 hosting sites with direct exchange access and cloud connectivity, along with its ultra-low latency feed handlers and network monitoring tools – and BMLL’s historical data and analytics capabilities, are clear. Together, the companies will provide clients with an end-to-end market data solution that supports both research and low-latency production environments.
“We have seen increasing levels of demand for an offering that combines a lower latency real-time environment with high-quality historical data in a consistent data format,” commented Paul Humphrey, Chief Executive Officer of BMLL. “This partnership with Pico addresses the very real pain points of many systematic traders who have dedicated far too many resources to migrating data between systems. Now, clients can spend 100% of their time gaining valuable insights rather than on unnecessary data cleansing. We are delighted to partner with Pico to advance this solution for the capital markets.”
This partnership between Pico and BMLL is particularly notable from a trading technology perspective because it addresses a growing demand for seamless integration of real-time and historical data in trading workflows. Traditionally, firms have relied on separate systems for research and live trading, creating inefficiencies when moving from back-testing and analysis to production environments. By combining Pico’s low-latency real-time data infrastructure with BMLL’s highly granular Level 3 historical data, the partnership bridges this gap, allowing traders to transition between research and execution without the need to reformat or normalise data. This reduces time to market for new strategies and minimises the operational complexity that often accompanies data management across different stages of the trading lifecycle.
Another key innovation lies in the granularity of BMLL’s historical data combined with Pico’s ability to deliver real-time data at low latency. BMLL’s Level 3 data offers insights into order book dynamics, allowing traders to analyse liquidity patterns and market microstructure at a nanosecond level. When paired with Pico’s real-time market connectivity, traders can apply insights gained from historical analysis directly to live trading environments. This level of integration empowers financial institutions to fine-tune their strategies with greater accuracy, improving execution performance and reducing slippage — a critical consideration in today’s highly competitive, algorithm-driven markets. The result is a more efficient, scalable, and performance-driven trading technology stack that enables clients to optimise trading outcomes while simplifying the infrastructure required to support it.
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