TradingTech Insight Blogs The latest content from across the platform
Q&A: Chris Lees of FixSpec on the “Myth” of Standard FIX
The FIX protocol has been around for years – since 1992 in fact – and is pretty much ubiquitous in the world of electronic trading. But it is still difficult to implement for many. IntelligentTradingTechnology.com spoke to Chris Lees, founder of London-based startup FixSpec, to find out what the issues are, and what his company is…
Analysis: Inside Supermicro’s Hyper-Speed HFT Server
Super Micro Computer last month introduced a new line of “Hyper-Speed” servers, pitching them at high frequency trading applications. The company says they work by “maximising processing power and precisely tuning hardware and firmware to attain up to 30% lower latency.” And just as importantly, the servers feature “high reliability as a primary design focus.”…
IT Innovation Pays Dividends for Financial Leaders
By Thomas Kejser, Fusion-io www.fusion-io.com Time is money. In the finance industry, the truth of this adage has driven leaders to the forefront of the technology adoption curve. When microseconds and milliseconds mean the difference between profits and losses, financial organisations soon build up teams of phenomenal IT experts to ensure the infrastructure powering the…
Analysis: Lightower/Sidera Merger
Over the holidays, it was announced that Lightower Fiber Networks and Sidera Networks are to merge. Here’s some more on the deal based (in large part) on a briefing from Sidera CEO Mike Sicoli … * The new company – name TBD and valued at $2 billion – is being created by Berkshire Partners acquiring Lightower…
Australia’s ASIC Taps First Derivatives Big Data Solution for Market Surveillance
The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC)’s selection of First Derivatives’ Delta Stream+ Market Surveillance solution is aimed at giving the regulator the same kinds of tools available to high frequency traders for monitoring market activity and identifying possible fraudulent behaviour. The deployment of Delta Stream+ is seen as an early application of big data…
The Conservative and Liberal Message: Taxes and Data Rates to Rise in 2013
There are some great certainties in life, such as taxes, death and so on. But death rates and taxes can go up and down. Not so with market data. There is no argument. Data rates always go up. Although 2012 was a notoriously poor year in terms of US trading volumes, aggregate market data traffic…
Thomson Reuters’ Craig: The Future is Cloud
Thomson Reuters expects the financial markets to move to a cloud-based, managed services delivery model, and it is positioning its Elektron platform to meet that requirement, says David Craig, president of the company’s Financial & Risk unit. Craig was interviewed by A-Team’s Andrew Delaney, for sister community ReferenceDataReview.com. By leveraging the Elektron infrastructure, Thomson Reuters…
Performance by Numbers: Lessons on Latency
When sizing up a data sheet, what numbers pop out at you? IOPS? GB/s? Latency? If you’re like most IT professionals, you might be starting to pay more attention to latency. In case you’re still wondering what all the fuss is about, let’s look at why low latency is so important, why it’s a challenge…
Oracle Announces X3-2 Appliance; Includes Cloudera
Oracle has that perfect holiday present for data scientists … the just announced Oracle Big Data Appliance X3-2 includes the latest microprocessors from Intel, plus a distribution of Cloudera’s Hadoop, together with Cloudera Manager. Specifically, Oracle is tapping Intel’s Xeon E5-2600 8-core chips (sometimes referred to as Sandy Bridge), and the appliance can be configured…
A Recruiter’s View: Much Demand For FPGA Skills in 2013
2013 looks set to prove a dynamic year for hiring in the low-latency technology sector. With a growing diversity in the “end user” space, we here at Harrington Starr – a specialist financial IT recruiter – are predicting significantly increased demand for talent with the best candidates in high demand. 2012 has proved a very…