Markit acquires Data Explorers
Financial information services company Markit has acquired Data Explorers, a provider of global securities lending data, from mid-market private equity firm Bowmark Capital.
Data Explorers’ data set covers US$12 trillion of securities in the lending programmes of over 20,000 institutional funds. The firm aims to provide a comprehensive view of short interest data and institutional fund activity across all market sectors.
By combining Data Explorers’ data set with its own products and services, Markit plans to develop new offerings that will help clients optimise their use of collateral. Markit will also develop products for equity market participants in the exchange-traded fund, dividend forecasting and quantitative research areas to complement its existing services.
“Markit’s acquisition of Data Explorers represents a logical extension to our existing data, research and analytics for the equity markets and complements our fixed income offering,” said Lance Uggla, CEO of Markit.
Data Explorers was established in 2002 and has offices in New York, London, Edinburgh and Hong Kong.
IntercontinentalExchange introduces new strategic tools
Global futures exchange, clearing house and OTC market operator IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) has released a new version of its WebICE trading platform, which it claims can help users build customised strategies, view implied spread prices for those strategies, and execute them automatically.
The improvements add a custom spread engine, a position keeper that helps monitor positions and profit and loss across all products traded on ICE, interval price limitations that provide circuit breaker abilities, and order management.
“The new features underscore ICE’s commitment to providing market participants with the most comprehensive tools for trading in today’s futures and OTC markets,” said Mayur Kapani, ICE vice president of trading technology. “These enhancements, combined with our innovative risk management infrastructure, give traders greater flexibility and confidence to execute.”
HKEx selects NYSE Technologies’ exchange data publisher
Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing (HKEx) has selected NYSE Technologies’ Exchange Data Publisher (XDP) to drive the HKEx Orion market data platform. XDP is an ultra-low latency solution designed to collect, integrate and disseminate real-time market data to local and international customers.
The HKEx Orion market data platform will deliver market data for all securities and derivatives traded on HKEx in a common message format. It will be capable of distributing more than 100,000 messages per second at microsecond latency. It will be rolled out towards the end of the second quarter of 2013, with a remote distribution hub in Mainland China and integration with HKEx’s derivatives market to follow.
XDP is based on NYSE Technologies’ DataFabric 6.0, a platform designed to provide high throughput, scalable application messaging and microsecond latency.
“The HKEx Orion market data platform will enable us to improve our customers’ market data experience by providing a suite of market data product feeds with content, market depth and bandwidth requirements tailored to suit the needs of different types of customers,” said Bryan Chan, head of market data at HKEx. “We selected NYSE Technologies’ XDP solution based on its high performance capabilities as well as the flexibility it offered to meet our customer requirements.”
McGraw-Hill acquires QuantHouse
French low-latency market data and algorithmic technology provider QuantHouse has been acquired by S&P Capital IQ, a unit of global publishing, financial information and media services company McGraw-Hill.
Founded in 2005, QuantHouse also provides proximity hosting and order routing services for hedge funds, market makers, proprietary desks and sell-side firms.
QuantHouse has 90 employees based in Paris, London and New York.
“The acquisition of QuantHouse will provide our clients with access to exchange pricing globally, including securities valuations and portfolio analytics, throughout all our desktop and enterprise solutions,” said Lou Eccleston, president, S&P Capital IQ. “In addition, the extensive capabilities QuantHouse brings will enable S&P Capital IQ to build our own unique real-time monitors, derived data sets and analytics.”
SunGard helps Trigon access Warsaw Stock Exchange
Trigon, an independent investment banking firm based in Poland, has gone live on SunGard’s Valdi direct market access and order management solutions. Trigon will use Valdi for trading on the Polish exchange, FIX connectivity and trade order routing.
SunGard’s Valdi provides equities, futures, fixed income and options traders with multi-asset trading solutions, including trade and order management systems, execution services, market data, risk management, compliance and clearing and settlement services on 170 markets around the world via the SunGard Global Network.
“We were impressed by Valdi’s trader workstation functionality and the user-friendliness of the solution for our trading floor,” Ryszard Czerwinski, managing partner at Trigon. “The Valdi trading tools will help us grow our business as we look to expand to new markets.”