S&P Capital IQ has gone live with its first data solution based on real-time technology for exchange and market data distribution acquired with QuantHouse in April 2012. The company’s consolidated financial data feed has been up and running since early March and offers normalised, real-time global content from 110 exchanges that can be accessed using a thin application programming interface (API).
The feed consolidates data from 21 points of presence that were previously part of the QuantHouse real-time network infrastructure and provides the data from hubs inside co-location facilities in New Jersey – Equinix’s NY4 data centre in Secausus – and London – Interxion’s data centre in London. A third base to host the data feed is due to open in Hong Kong in the third quarter of this year.
Brian Cassin, managing director at S&P Capital IQ, describes the low-latency consolidated data feed as “the first endeavour with QuantHouse technology to come to market.” He differentiates it from QuantFEED, which he suggests is an end-to-end ultra low latency solution well suited to systematic and algo trading, saying: “The consolidated data feed is for clients that do not have ultra low latency as their most important requirement. They may be looking for low latency, but also broad coverage of global exchange data, data aggregation, normalisation, ease of implementation and ease of data consumption.”
The API can be part of a hosted or deployed solution, and users can call it for data covering anything from regional data, perhaps all North American equities, to specific tranches of securities, perhaps 5,000 securities to price a portfolio.
S&P Capital IQ expects the service to find favour among investment banks, investment managers and wealth managers, but does not rule out interest from its other two customer sectors of corporates and financial institutions. Cassin says: “This feed is good for firms that need to power in-house applications such as middle-office portfolio and risk applications. It could also be used for back-office applications, such as snapshots of real-time data needed to price portfolios and positions.”
To date, the company has signed up one investment management firm for the consolidated feed. With clients in both London and New York, the firm will take data from both the London and New Jersey facilities.
In addition to real-time exchange data, the specialty acquired from QuantHouse, S&P Capital IQ plans to deliver proprietary intellectual property as part of the consolidated data feed. This non-exchange data could be S&P Capital IQ data or other data to which the company has distribution rights and is expected to help users build strategies and applications.
Cassin says the consolidated data feed is the beginning of a series of products that will use QuantHouse real-time technology and grow the overall base of S&P Capital IQ’s business. He expects the next solution in the series to be introduced towards the end of May, but also notes that existing products such as QuantFEED and QuantLINK are benefitting from development funding. “We are building out exchange coverage, which will benefit QuantFEED, and expanding QuantLINK into Asia Pacific, a region that QuantHouse had not reached before the acquisition,” he says.
In terms of partnerships, Cassin notes that S&P Capital IQ’s recent tie-up with TBricks will see the latter’s trading system continue to use QuantFEED, albeit with additional exchange coverage, rather than the consolidated feed as QuantFEED offers lower latency.
Looking at the potential of S&P Capital IQ and its acquired real-time technology, Cassin concludes: “Very simply, large, international financial services providers are eager to find better ways to manage global exchange data and deliver market information to internal and external user groups. S&P Capital IQ’s positioning and reputation give us the opportunity to scale multiple real-time product capabilities into our core customer segments and internal processes.”
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