Innovation
Wavelength Podcast Ep. 222: Grasshopper’s John Lin on Using Tech for Good
Lin, the founder of a Singaporean HFT firm, joins to talk about why banks struggle with innovation, and how he wants to use tech for altruistic purposes.
Point Break: How Vendors Push Their Products to the Limit
Vendors don’t release new products or updates without putting their software through rigorous testing. What does that testing involve, and what different approaches do companies employ? Max Bowie finds out.
At the ‘Fringes of Realism’: Agent-Based Models Take Hold Among Quants
Agent-based modeling has taken root seemingly everywhere throughout the last decade, from theoretical physics, to military operations, to public health, to ride-sharing apps like Uber, and to a much lesser extent, finance. However, a year such as 2020…
Startup Hedge Fund Turns to Quantamental Analysis for ESG Products
Boston-based Changebridge Capital is using a hybrid approach to find investment opportunities in misunderstood small- and mid-cap companies.
Waters Wrap: S&P-IHS Markit and the Land of Giants (Also, More on AML Tech)
Anthony provides some of his initial questions and thoughts following the S&P-IHS Markit deal. He also takes a second look at AML technology after getting some sage feedback.
‘Massive Land Grab’: S&P’s IHS Markit Buy Creates Data Juggernaut, But Users Fear Price Hikes
The deal reflects the broader trend of market participants pursuing scale to create true front-to-back trading and data environments, which may signal a trading platform acquisition in the future—though the IHS Markit acquisition may face regulatory…
Natural Language Generation: Great Promise, Significant Barriers
Sell-side firms and data providers are increasingly experimenting with natural-language generation to create new forms of automatically curated reports, emails and alerts, but the technique comes with significant challenges.
Bloomberg Enlists NLG to Write News Summaries
The data provider is using natural language generation to summarize news articles and write automated stories.
Qontigo Releases New 'Linked' Risk Model Covering Global Equities
The new offering blends existing Axioma risk models into a single, nuanced risk assessment.
UBS AM’s Quant & Data Science Unit Looks to Blend Human & Machine in 2021
The QED team within the asset manager is aligning its focus next year to deliver a holistic AI platform to its investment professionals—including a recommendation engine.
IBM Bets on Cloud & Containerization to Win Over Investment Banks
After its acquisitions of Red Hat and Promontory, IBM is looking to expand its footprint in the capital markets through containerization, as well as reg reporting in the cloud.
Waters Wrap: Machine-Learning Models Suffer from Covid (And Exchanges in the Cloud, Pt. 2)
Anthony says that while machine-learning models have been hit-and-miss during the pandemic, NLP is taking on greater importance. He also looks at how exchanges are looking to move their core matching engines to the cloud.
Model Misfires Raise Questions Over Training Data
Quants wrestle with how far into the past their machine learning models should peer.
EU’s Cloud Vision Still Pie in the Sky
The supporters of a plan for a federated cloud architecture in Europe held a conference to discuss development plans, but it’s still unclear how the concept will work in practice.
Fitch Solutions Revamps FitchConnect Using Micro-Frontend Technology
The use of agile development techniques and adoption of micro-frontend technology has yielded significant improvements in development productivity, officials say.
Waters Wrap: Is AML Tech Worth the Cost? (And Cloud Moves & More Blockchain)
Anthony wonders if AML platforms are being scrutinized enough by banks and regulators, then looks at Wells Fargo's tapping of HPR for its quant division and Northern Trust’s blockchain plans.
Northern Trust Turns to DLT for the Future
Distributed-ledger technology will help ensure asset safety and allow custodians to provide more value to clients using AI and analytics.
FX Markets Ripe to Exploit Sentiment Data, Experts Say
Already well established as an alpha-enhancing input to equities trading, sentiment data is now being applied to other asset classes, starting with foreign exchange.
Wells Fargo’s Head of Quant Strategy Explains HPR Deployment
Wells Fargo’s Quantitative Prime Services division has tapped HPR’s Unimus platform, starting with its market access gateway and risk management tool.
Waters Wrap: Blockchain is Still Overhyped (And Ion/Broadway Thoughts & the Consulting Boom)
In 2016, Anthony wrote that the blockchain revolution was overhyped—unsurprisingly, his opinions have not changed. He also delves into the Ion-Broadway deal, and looks at new consulting/advisory firms that have recently come to market.
Synechron Develops Differential Privacy Tech to Leverage Internal Data
The solutions are designed to allow firms to query data and build models more effectively without breaching global privacy rules.
Crux Extends Google Cloud Partnership with Data Catalog Integration
After partnering with GCP last year, the data delivery vendor is working on its most in-depth integration thus far.
EU’s Gaia-X Project: Reaching for Digital Sovereignty
Right now, details are scarce for the project, but Jo says that even if the initiative fails to get off the ground, it marks a big step in the bloc’s effort to achieve digital sovereignty.