Best Low-Latency Data/Technology Provider: Nasdaq Market Technology

New from Nasdaq is its Financial Framework, the harmonized and fully integrated modular architecture for market infrastructure. What ultimately proved decisive in Nasdaq Market Technology’s win is the Unlisted Trading Privileges (UTP) Operating Committee’s decision to migrate its Securities Information Processor (SIP) to the Nasdaq Financial Framework in October last year.

UTP SIP processes and consolidates protected bid/ask quotes and trades, limiting up/down bands from every US equities trading venue into a single, easily consumed data feed. The group was looking to upgrade the technology platform to bolster resilience and increase speed. “We’re robust in the way that we can build out the system, and we’re resilient in the way that the framework is able to operate out of two diverse locations simultaneously and withstand any type of interruption,” says Joel Kazis, vice president of market technology, Americas, Nasdaq.

Most importantly, the Nasdaq Market Technology delivery could live up to the UTP SIP’s expectations for speed. Kazis says one of the pressure points was to ensure latency was on a par with—if not better than—other market participants. At launch, the goal was to achieve 50 microseconds of latency, and to reach 25 microseconds of latency within one year. Nasdaq, however, went way beyond, delivering below 20 microseconds of latency at launch and continuing to bring it down. “Performance is no longer the main issue. We’ve really managed to beat that one,” says Kazis, adding that Nasdaq had in fact already met and surpassed the second-year goal at the time of launch.

Judges were won over by Nasdaq’s “excellent integration capabilities across all available low-latency feeds in the market”, and said that it was the “impressive speeds and capacity” that set it apart in its category.

When existing Nasdaq Market Technology clients now upgrade to the new technology, they too have the opportunity to realize the benefits of these features and how the technology is pushing the boundaries for latency. The race to zero is on.