Hedge funds turning to the middle office to recapture outperformance

Posted by on Jul 13, 2012

It’s been a tough couple of years for hedge funds. The industry was built on delivering eye-popping returns, but recently, hedge funds as a whole have underperformed the market. Over the same period the hedge fund industry has been tarred with the brush of politically unpopular high-frequency trading which has had a “baby with the bathwater” effect. The reality is only a small...
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Filed under Financial Services, High Frequency Trading
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Reason 3: Appliances deliver huge performance gains

Posted by on Feb 15, 2011

This is part 3 in a 10 part series: 10 reasons for the growth in middleware appliances. The series summarizes what we’ve learned from our clients about what they value in appliances and why they selected Solace. So far I’ve talked about saving money and making life easier. The third leg in the stool of commonly recognized advantages of appliances is higher performance. There is no one...
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Filed under Appliances, Cross Industry, Financial Services, Hardware, Messaging
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Hardware vs. software solutions – the parasite drag analogy

Posted by on Feb 1, 2011

Stephen Hoogasian is a former US Air Force pilot with extensive experience in application of C2 information systems.  He has reviewed the utility of hardware routers such as Solace’s application within the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense. Mr. Hoogasian flew aircraft including the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and T-38 jet shown here. What is the potential...
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Filed under Government, Hardware, Messaging
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RBC Capital Markets bets on Solace and Arista

Posted by on Dec 14, 2010

Sell-Side Technology, a publication of Waters Technology, just published an article that describes how RBC Capital Markets is bolstering their services in the global equities trading business with a new low latency trading system based on technology including our message routers and Ethernet switches from Arista Networks. Seth Gelberg, CTO of global equities and futures, discussed the strategic...
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Filed under Capital Markets, Coverage, Customers, Financial Services
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Lindsay Lohan, Sigmund Freud and back office acceleration

Posted by on Dec 7, 2010

I read a news story yesterday about nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, who claims that the internet has made us a less serious and deep thinking people. The thrust of the claim by the Peruvian-born winner of this year’s prize for literature is that the internet is driving everyone to a shorter attention span focused on entertainment, at the expense of advancing deeper and more...
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Filed under Capital Markets, Financial Services, High Frequency Trading
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Kernel bypass – revving up linux networking

Posted by on Mar 30, 2010

In Formula One racing, all cars must comply with a defined set of rules (the formula) and find ways to differentiate with a car, driver and support team that all follow the basic guidelines. The same is true of automated trading systems. The formula is simple: each trading system consumes market data and produces orders. What happens in between is how each firm differentiates themselves. Just...
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Filed under Capital Markets, Messaging, Partners
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Latest financial meme: consistent latency

Posted by on Mar 24, 2010

Let’s face it, if you want to get attention on the Internet, you have to fall in line with the concept of memes. These are the ideas that take on a life of their own, such as the dramatic prairie dog or the VP dropping an F-bomb. Twitter’s version of memes is the concept of trending topics based on frequently tweeted keywords. This lets you see what topics people are talking about...
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Filed under Capital Markets, Financial Services
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Trading microseconds for nanoseconds

Posted by on Sep 23, 2009

The co-location of market data systems near or inside exchanges is becoming big business. The ultra-low latency high frequency trading systems that you find in these facilities are niche applications to be sure, but what a niche! NYSE Euronext recently committed to build a 400,000 square foot co-location facility in New Jersey. That’s a big investment to make in something NYSE Euronext CEO...
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Filed under Financial Services, Messaging, Products
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Listen all y'all it's an arbitrage…

Posted by on Mar 11, 2009

Arbitrage is back, that is, if it ever really went away. Rob Curran recently wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal’s MarketBeat blog on how the 10-15 millisecond gap between the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) and the pricing algorithms in most dark pools of liquidity is making money for technologically advanced traders using latency arbitrage. Basically if you can calculate the NBBO...
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Filed under Capital Markets, Messaging, Technology
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Spotlight on Risk Management

Posted by on Jan 23, 2009

There is a good story Advanced Trading this week about the challenges of applying yesterday’s risk management solutions to today’s market requirements. The whole article is a good read, but you can cut to the chase and just read the summary: There are three specific data pitfalls that can obscure risk analysis at the portfolio manager and risk officer levels, according to Adam...
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Filed under Capital Markets, Financial Services, Information Providers, Messaging
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