FiNETIK – Asia and Latin America – Market News Network

Asia and Latin America News Network focusing on Financial Markets, Energy, Environment, Commodity and Risk, Trading and Data Management

March 22, 2013 • 1:35 am 1

Bloomberg and El Financiero to Launch Spanish-Language HD Channel in Mexico and Central America

Partnership Will Create Local Content across Television, Web, Mobile and Print

 Bloomberg Media Group, a division Bloomberg L.P., and El Financiero, the media branch of Grupo Lauman, an integrated solutions company, today announced a long-term agreement to launch a new multi-platform Spanish-language business news service. The companies will create a high-definition television channel that combines Bloomberg’s global business and financial insight with locally-produced content. The service will be offered in Mexico and Central America. The companies also plan to offer content online, on mobile sites and in print with a co-branded section in El Financiero newspaper.

“Mexico is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and our agreement with El Financiero allows Bloomberg to deliver the sharpest global business and financial insight to a critical market,” said Andy Lack, CEO of Bloomberg Media Group. “This is a significant part of the company’s strategy of forming partnerships with leading providers in markets that have a compelling economic growth story, as we have done in India, Turkey, Mongolia, Indonesia, Africa and the Middle East.”

“The new venture with Bloomberg will provide local investors, businessmen and opinion makers, with high-quality, relevant content that moves markets,” said Manuel Arroyo, President and CEO of Grupo Lauman and El Financiero. “We look forward to bringing to the table Mexico’s key influencers to further the discussion around this region’s economic growth.”

Scheduled to launch in late 2013, this will be the first business news channel available in HD throughout Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. It will be broadcast from El Financiero’s new HD studio in Mexico City. An executive producer from Bloomberg Television will be appointed to work alongside El Financiero to assist in the production of the network’s economic and business coverage. The programming will draw from Bloomberg’s extensive financial and economic data as well as reporting from the company’s 2,400+ journalists in 146 news bureaus across 72 countries.

Mr. Arroyo, along with Enrique Quintana, Chief Editor of El Financiero, will participate in the Bloomberg Mexico Economic Summit at the Club de Banqueros de Mexico. This event gathers the country’s most influential political, financial and corporate minds to discuss the critical issues surrounding the region’s growth.

Source: Bobsguide, 21.03.2013

Filed under: Central America, Latin America, Mexico, News, , , , , , , , , , ,

October 27, 2012 • 1:11 am 0

News and updates on LEI standard progress and development

As a follow up on G20 acceptance in Los Cabos in July 2012 and the Financial Stability Board guidelines and recommendations of the Legal Entity Identifier  LEI, we will regularly update this post with news and article to provide an overview of  LEI standard progress and development.

 
First Published  13.07.2012 , Last Update 27.09.2012

Filed under: Data Vendor, Data Management, Reference Data, Standards, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 29, 2012 • 12:53 am 0

Whitepaper: Bloomberg to embrace emerging LEI

The industry initiative to develop and promote a standard global legal entity identifier (LEI) is expected to significantly reduce the opacity associated with complex financial instruments, widely acknowledged to be a major contributing factor in the 2008 credit crisis.

In this white paper, Bloomberg explains the implications of the emerging LEI for financial institutions, and outlines how it is embracing the new standard to help clients better understand the entities whose instruments they trade and hold (like mapping of LEI to Blombergs numeric BUID, etc.)

Download the White Paper Now

Source: A-TEAM 28.06.2012

Filed under: Data Management, Reference Data, Standards, , , , , , , , , , ,

March 9, 2012 • 2:39 pm 0

Thomson Reuters fails RIC licensing market test – Symbology

Thomson Reuters has failed to appease EU antitrust bodies over proposed concessions in the way it licenses the proprietary Reuters Instrument Codes.

In 2009 the European Commission opened antitrust proceedings against Thomson Reuters over possible abuse of its dominant market position in the supply of RICs – codes that identify securities and are used by financial institutions to retrieve data from Thomson Reuters’ real-time feeds.The EC argued that the firm could be abusing its dominant position in the market for these consolidated real-time datafeeds by stopping customers from using RICs for retrieving data from alternative providers and mapping them for such a purpose to alternative symbols.

In an attempt to ward off further action by the Commission, the vendor agreed to let customers license RICs for mapping purposes over a five-year period for a monthly fee based on the number of RIC symbols to be used.

However, in a speech in Copenhagen today, EU competition chief Joaquín Almunia, said that a market test of the new measures had failed to deliver a desirable outcome.

“We have now reached a critical stage in this investigation,” said Almunia. “If no effective solution can be agreed upon, then we will have to draw the adequate conclusions.”

The company could face fines of up to 10% of its turnover if it does not offer further concessions to users.

Thomson Reuters’ rival Bloomberg has moved to make its own proprietary symbology available for free to developers and market practitioners.

Filed under: Data Vendor, Market Data, News, Reference Data, , , , , , ,

March 2, 2012 • 6:23 pm 0

Bloomberg boosts network speed and efficiency in Asia

Bloomberg L.P., financial data, news and analytics provider, has extended availability of its enterprise data services in markets throughout Asia. An efficient network of data centers across the region enables the delivery of reliable collocation, connectivity and infrastructure services along with reduced latency in data distribution.

The expansion of low-latency services throughout Asia includes Equinix Inc.‘s Hong Kong and Sydney-based International Business Exchange (IBXÒ) data centers, further strengthening the existing Bloomberg deployments in New York, Chicago, Slough and Frankfurt. Current and prospective customers located inside these Equinix IBX data centers can now directly connect to Bloomberg’s real time data, B-Pipe and Event Driven Trading feeds.

The coordinated service delivery also benefits customers of Bloomberg’s agency broker, Bloomberg Tradebook, in New York, London and Hong Kong.

“Together, Equinix and Bloomberg address a market need for secure and reliable connectivity to multiple partners simultaneously,” said John Knuff, general manager, global financial services at Equinix. “The expansion of services into Asia enables Bloomberg customers to leverage our global footprint of data centers. And Bloomberg’s presence across these markets adds further value to the global financial ecosystem inside Equinix.”

Source: NetworkAsia,02.03.2012

Filed under: Asia, Australia, Data Vendor, Hong Kong, Japan, Market Data, Singapore, , , , , ,

February 29, 2012 • 12:49 pm 0

Bloomberg unveils its NEXT terminal

On its 30th anniversary Bloomberg officially launched an updated $100 million version of its core terminal yesterday in London and New York simultaneously. The NEXT platform of the Bloomberg Professional Service is intended to give traders and financial services end users faster, deeper insights into the markets and to enable the market data terminal to answer questions more intuitively in future, not just present research and data, via an enhanced ‘natural language’ search function and ‘give me the answer’ front-end tool.

According to Tom Secunda, the co-founder and vice chairman of Bloomberg speaking at the launch, “this is an evolutionary step” that helps order increasingly complex markets and aids productivity, while continuing the company’s mission to deliver on “Mike Bloomberg’s famous three-legged stool, consisting of news, data and analytics”. The NEXT platform consolidates and crucially integrates these feeds better than ever before believes the company, giving users easier access to the information that exists on the terminal and enhancing the customer experience.  “For example, you can ask what was US CPI in 2000 …and bang, there is the answer.” Users can then drill down into the answer for further research, added Jean-Paul Zammitt, global head of core product development at Bloomberg, pointing out that this is the key presentational change in the NEXT platform, requiring every help screen and back end process to be rewritten and updated.

Under development for the last two years, Bloomberg asserts that 3,000 technologists were involved in the overhaul of its core terminal, which is used by traders, analysts and even some large multinational corporate treasuries looking to hedge their foreign exchange exposure. A select group of existing clients, including OCBC Bank, Credit Agricole CIB, and Glenhill Capital were involved in the development phrase, allowing Bloomberg to review common keystrokes and commands across an array of functions in order to improve the customer experience.

More than 100,000 clients have already converted to Bloomberg NEXT at no extra cost in the £20,000 per year outlay since its ‘soft launch’ at the end of last year, with less than 1% converting back to their old terminal. The company said that two thirds of them are using the NEXT platform more than their old terminal and that it wants to convert all of its 313,000 subscriber base for the Bloomberg Professional Service by the end of this year.

“Bloomberg NEXT saves me time by discovering functions and data more quickly,” said Seth Hoenig, head trader at one of the ‘soft launch’ development partners, Glenhill Capital. “The new help menus enable users to find the answer that they need fast. Stumbling upon the hidden gems within Bloomberg has always been revelatory; now it’s easier.”

According to Lars Hansen, senior portfolio manager at Denmark’s DIP, the Danish Pension Fund for Engineers: “Bloomberg NEXT is a major step forward. It is much more intuitive – you can see multiple pieces of information on one screen, which lets you see new interrelationships.”

Bloomberg highlighted what it sees as three key improvements in its updated terminal:

• Better discoverability: Bloomberg NEXT’s new discoverability features allow users to get quick, direct answers to their queries as well as pull together a wide variety of related details such as companies, research and charts. A more powerful search engine means users can type just a few words and go directly to the desired securities, functions, people and news. The streamlined menu listing puts the most relevant information and topics right up front.

• More uniformity: Every screen of the Bloomberg Professional Service has been redesigned to provide a common look and feel. This consistent interface across all asset classes, from FX to commodities and fixed income, and across all functions should allow expert users and generalists alike to more efficiently navigate often-used functions and discover new ones. An educational overview of each market segment for novices is also included in the update.

• Intuitive workflow: The functionality of the Bloomberg Professional service has been re-engineered so that a user should be able to quickly and seamlessly navigate through the series of questions and answers essential to making smart market decisions. The new workflow, with user prompts, in Bloomberg NEXT is intended to allow expert users to drill deeper into the data and to let occasional users discover new functions.

“The complexity and interconnectedness of the global financial marketplace has grown significantly. Business and financial professionals need to synthesize astounding amounts of information to make intelligent investment decisions,” explained co-founder, Tom Secunda. The firm is still a big believer in a single product approach, however, he stressed at the official launch of NEXT but this, “obviously gives us challenges as markets get more and more complex.”

NEXT is Bloomberg’s response. “The pace of change in financial markets will only accelerate and with it the need for more information,” added Secunda, before concluding that he believes, “Bloomberg is now positioned to quickly answer those evolving questions and ensure that our clients will always have the leading edge in making investment decisions.”

News Analysis 

Bloomberg’s new NEXT platform will go head-to-head against Thomson Reuters in the market data sector, which is increasing in value as financial markets get more and more complex and new post-crash regulations place new information demands upon market participants. Both companies are running neck and neck in terms of market data share, with estimates of 30% for each at present.

One terminal is proprietary, of course, with Bloomberg maintaining its closed market data platform in its NEXT iteration, while Thomson Reuters is now following an open access model with its Eikon terminal, allowing users to add their own data and applications. The relative failure of Thomson Reuters Eikon platform, which has sold only tens of thousands of units since launch rather than the hoped for hundreds of thousands, is what prompted the open access model from Thomson Reuters, although it does of course take time to build up a following. It will be interesting to see if Thomson Reuters move allows the firm to win back lost market data share or if Bloomberg’s updated terminal can keep it on its recent upward curve. The former is still benefiting from the 2008 merger that united Thompson Financial with Reuters, giving it synergies in the data collection and delivery areas, but the competition between the two has just hotted up.

Source: Bobsguide, 28.02.2012

Filed under: Corporate Action, Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, News, Reference Data, , , , , ,

February 2, 2012 • 1:39 am 0

Bloomberg Opens its Data Distribution Technology

Open Market Data Initiative Will Spur Innovation & Industry Collaboration

Bloomberg is opening its market data interfaces for use by technology professionals globally, without cost or restriction, the company announced today. Bloomberg’s application programming interface, known as BLPAPI, is used daily by more than 100,000 professionals across the financial services industry and is now publicly available under a free-use license.

BLPAPI powers global market data distribution to desktops, workgroups and enterprise applications. In addition to Bloomberg Professional service subscribers, non-Bloomberg customers, vendors and software developers can now use BLPAPI as an alternative to proprietary technologies for market data distribution. This is Bloomberg’s latest move in support of its Open Market Data Initiative – an ongoing effort to embrace and promote open solutions for the financial services industry.

“Today’s global financial marketplace depends on the free flow of timely and accurate market information,” said Tom Secunda, Founding Partner and Global Head of Bloomberg’s Financial Products and Services division. “By embracing open technologies for market data distribution, we remove layers of expense, erase restrictive license agreements and enable innovation.”

“We intend to evolve BLPAPI into an open standard with the help of an independent committee charged with managing the future development and stability of a truly open market data interface,” said Shawn Edwards, Chief Technology Officer of Bloomberg LP. “Open technologies allow our customers, partners, and others to direct resources towards developing innovative services instead of coping with rigid technologies.”

Bloomberg’s open API follows the release of Bloomberg’s Open Symbology (BSYM), a system to identify securities across all global asset classes. BSYM is an alternative to proprietary security identifiers that has been adopted by leading global securities exchanges and financial services organizations.

The BLPAPI interface works with a comprehensive set of programming languages and operating systems, including Java, C, C++, .NET, COM and Perl. Other benefits of using Bloomberg’s API include:

• A comprehensive technical definition of a market data interface that includes publish/subscribe, request/response, all built on a flexible service-oriented design,

• An MIT-style license that allows users to copy and use BLPAPI interfaces for use with any market data service, applications or adapter technology,

• A simple and intuitive interface technology that is suitable for high volume and low latency applications.

* Bloomberg is offering its programming interface (BLPAPI) under a free-use agreement. This does not apply to any content.

Source:Bob´s Guide, 01.02.2012

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, , , , , , , , ,

August 9, 2011 • 4:52 am 0

Bloomberg Pushes Benefits, Value of Data License New Commercial Model

Bloomberg is redoubling efforts to convince customers of the value of its new pricing model for its Bloomberg Data License service of intraday and end-of-day market and reference data—known as the New Commercial Model (NCM)—which it originally introduced in March, and which could see the cost of Data License increase by between 30 and 100 percent over three years.

 The pricing model, which is part of the vendor’s new customer engagement model for enterprise Data License customers, came into effect from the start of June for existing contracts facing renewal and from April 1 for new accounts, according to a letter sent to clients in March by Bloomberg president and chief executive Daniel Doctoroff. However, in recent weeks, sources say the vendor’s sales management team has contacted Data License clients to obtain feedback on the structure of the NCM, and to visit customers in person to re-explain the model.

Although Bloomberg declines to comment on why it was revisiting customers, banks and buy-side firms have criticized the model, which will lead to unbudgeted price rises of up to—and in some cases more than—100 percent. “Originally they gave us a detailed breakdown of every single security license, back-office license, estimated dollar spend, renewal dates and all the instruments that had been consumed on the feed,” says a source at one sell-side firm. “Then in the last two weeks they came back and said they want to re-present this….  Bloomberg is keen to make sure customers understand everything and show that it is not as bad as it first looks.”

Under the old commercial model, customers paid a monthly charge per security, with prices based on six categories of instrument type and three categories of data type—a security master incorporating corporate actions and prices; derived data; and issuer data—plus a sub-category of price-only data. Under the NCM, Bloomberg has retained the monthly charges and the link between prices and data/instrument type, but has replaced existing categories with a greater number of new categories which result in higher fees overall than in the old model. For example, the security master, corporate actions data and prices for a corporate security were previously bundled together for $1.50 per security per month, but are now sold separately for $1.70, $0.50 and $0.75 per security per month, respectively—a total of $2.95 per security per month.

Bloomberg has also expanded the six instrument categories—including a category covering corporate, government, and money market assets; one for municipals; agency pools; collateralized mortgage obligations, commercial mortgage-backed securities, whole loans and asset-backed securities; equity options, futures, warrants, funds indexes and currencies; and economic statistics—to 11 categories, by splitting out different asset types into new, individual categories, such as separate categories for funds, US government and syndicated loans.

Meanwhile, the vendor has divided issuer data into three component categories—credit risk data, fundamentals and estimates—meaning that monthly fees for a corporate security have more than doubled from $2.50 to $6.50 in the NCM. The cost of derived data has risen by up to 50 percent depending on the asset class, while the vendor now charges for accompanying corporate actions data, regardless of whether a corporate action event actually occurred that month. Under the NCM, multiple requests from firms who wish to view the data more than once per month will also now be charged between one and three cents per security per day, depending on the asset class and data type, whereas previously the first multi-request was free.

More Flexible
Bloomberg officials say the new model is intended to provide more flexibility and value, and to allow clients to “only pay for the data that they want and need.” But one market data manager at a European asset manager calls the change a “pure slicing and dicing” exercise, adding that if a business needs to subscribe to all the content, “You get nothing new or extra—you just have to pay a lot more for the same data.”

To soften the impact of the changes for existing clients, Bloomberg’s Data Solutions group will provide enterprise data license consultants to help clients manage their data usage, and is phasing in the increases, so clients renewing their Data License contract this year and early next year will see stepped cost increments, limited to a total increase of no more than 7 percent in the first year and a further 7 percent in the second. Some clients praise this softly-softly approach but are concerned about the impact after that initial two-year period.

“In our peer group, we are sharing knowledge on how much it will impact us. For some, it’s 2 percent, for others it’s 30 or 100 percent, depending on what data you take and how exposed you are to certain services,” says a market data vendor manager at a second European asset manager. “Seven percent in the first year, then another 7 percent in the second is fine, but after that, when it hits you fully—that’s what we’re worrying about.”

In addition to incremental rises, Bloomberg will also offer “optimization,” whereby if a firm has multiple contracts with the vendor across different branches or business units and requests the same data on the same security in the same month via those contracts, then—excluding intraday and derived data—the vendor will only charge between one and three cents for the second request, rather than twice the full price, which it expects to deliver better value for clients.

However, Jean-Pierre Gottdiener, manager at Paris-based consultancy Lucidine Conseil, says firms who have made the biggest efforts so far to reduce costs and administration by consolidating multiple contracts across branches will not be eligible to take advantage of optimization, and will have to pay the most. “If you only have one contract because you have already rationalized your request to Bloomberg, there will be no optimization and you will support nearly the full increase of the prices,” he says. “Some firms have made no optimization on Bloomberg and their increase was only 30 percent, whereas those who have already made an investment to rationalize Bloomberg face a rise of 100 percent.”

Some acknowledge that the vendor’s prices are fair, given that data volumes have increased considerably since the last time the vendor increased prices—more than a decade ago, according to Bloomberg officials—but Gottdiener adds that Bloomberg’s leading position in the market means “the industry is facing a real issue from the policy, and will probably need to find alternative solutions.”

In fact, the NCM has prompted dissatisfied buy- and sell-side firms to reassess their data consumption. Some participants have even said they will look to alternative parties for cheaper data for some parts of the Data License, such as corporate actions, where plenty of alternative providers exist. “Often with Bloomberg, you just absorb the whole universe and pump it everywhere, so it’s good that we now have to look at what data do we use, where we use it, and why,” adds the source at the second asset manager.

Source: Waters Technology 08.08. 2011

Filed under: Corporate Action, Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, News, Reference Data, Standards, , , , , , ,

October 13, 2010 • 9:39 pm 0

Bloomberg Bows to Pressure to Maintain Support for BUID Indefinitely

The migration plans of data giant Bloomberg to gradually move users from its BUID identifier to its new Bloomberg Global ID (BBGID), which is at the heart of its open symbology initiative, have hit a roadblock. Users have exerted pressure on the vendor to step back from the initial migration timeline and to maintain support for the BUID indefinitely, and the vendor has agreed, for now at least.

Source: A-TEAM, 12.10.2010

Filed under: Data Management, News, Reference Data, , , , , , , ,

November 11, 2009 • 11:37 pm 1

Thomson Reuters Faces EU Probe of RIC Data Code Issues

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — Thomson Reuters Corp., the news and data provider created in a merger last year, faces a European Union antitrust probe into possible restrictions on competitors’ use of identification codes for real-time market data feeds.

Bloomberg provided free access to it’s code just a few days ago.

The probe will focus on whether Thomson Reuters prevents clients from translating Reuters instrument codes  (RIC’s) to alternative identification codes of rival data-feed suppliers, a process known as “mapping,” the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, said in a statement today from Brussels.

“Without the possibility of such mapping, customers may potentially be ‘locked’-in to working with Thomson Reuters because replacing Reuters instrument codes by reconfiguring or by rewriting their software applications can be a long and costly procedure,” the commission said.

The probe is the EU’s second into financial information providers this year after the regulator said in January that it would review how Standard & Poor’s charges customers for the use of certain codes in databases. Thomson Reuters said last week that third-quarter profit dropped 59 percent on declining revenue at its sales and trading business and legal division.

Thomson Reuters said in a statement that it received an EU questionnaire Nov. 3 and is cooperating with the probe.

“Thomson Reuters data is reliably and consistently identified by a managed code, which we create and maintain to enable navigation of the company’s global content,” the New York-based company said in the e-mailed statement. “Our customers are at the heart of our business and we continue to work with them to explore how best to add value to our data services.”

The commission said it started the probe on its own initiative. Under EU rules, companies can be fined as much as 10 percent of annual sales for antitrust violations. Companies can appeal antitrust decisions at EU courts.

Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with Thomson Reuters in selling financial and legal information and trading systems.

Source: Bloomberg 10.11.2009 by  Matthew Newman in Brussels

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, News, Reference Data, Risk Management, Standards, , , , , , , , , ,

November 6, 2009 • 5:04 am 1

Bloomberg smashes proprietary instrument identifier market – Bloomberg Open Symbology

Market data vendor Bloomberg is looking to create an open standard for financial instrument identifiers by making its own proprietary symbology available for free to developers and market practitioners.

While Reuters Thompson and S&P are under probe by EU, 11.11.2009

The vendor – which has built its business by maintaining tight control over its proprietary data feeds – has created a Website where industry participants can search for and access identifiers developed for the Bloomberg Professional terminal and enterprise data products.

The Website, at bysm.bloomberg.com, offers a repository for Bloomberg Symbology codes at no charge to users, with no material impediments on use. The vendor promises global coverage across all asset classes and “freedom and flexibility in application development”.

Financial instrument identifiers are necessary for a wide array of essential functions in the front and back office. Typically, organisations that administer symbologies – such as Reuters’ RIC codes, Markit’s RED database and S&P-administered Cusip datasets – assert proprietary rights over their identifiers, impose significant limitations on their use and either charge users license fees or include their symbology licenses with the purchase of related products.

By making its identifiers available for free, Bloomberg is driving a horse and cart through this established market model and laying down the gauntlet for other competitors to follow.

Source: Finextra, 04.11.2009

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, News, Reference Data, , , , , , , ,

August 19, 2009 • 2:33 am 0

BM&FBOVESPA Authorizes Cedro Market & Finances As DMA Provider

The Brazilian Securities, Commodities and Futures Exchange – BM&FBOVESPA has authorized Cedro Market & Finances to act as a provider of direct market access (DMA) for BM&F segment (derivatives markets). As from today, Cedro will offer its clients an order routing system that allows direct trading of financial and agricultural derivatives traded at the Exchange.

This DMA modality permits investors to directly access the Exchange’s electronic trading platform, GTS, without having to transmit the data through the brokerage house’s network. The client connects to BM&FBOVESPA’s system through the authorized provider. The connection between the investor and the Exchange, however, is monitored by the brokerage house that provided the access so as to enable it to control the customer’s order flow.

Cedro Market & Finances is the first Brazilian company authorized to act as a DMA provider. With the adherence of Cedro, BM&FBOVESPA now has three access providers for the derivatives and futures markets. In January, Marco Polo Networks began offering the service, and, in May, Bloomberg Tradebook.

Cedro Market & Finances is a financial markets technology provider. The company has a portfolio of approximately 49 clients and 100,000 domestic and international investors from countries like USA, United Kingdom, and Spain.

Trading via DMA provider

In July 2009, trading via DMA provider registered 1,030,300 contracts traded, in 16,763 trades. These numbers represent 16.6% of the total contracts traded and 3% of the number of trades, during the same period, in all DMA trading (BM&F segment), including DMA via order routing with CME Group.

Source:BM&FBOVESPA,19.08.2009

Filed under: BM&FBOVESPA, Brazil, Exchanges, Latin America, News, Trading Technology, , , , , , , , ,

August 7, 2009 • 11:49 pm 0

Market data rivals battle for share of wallet as terminal sales wilt

In an unprecedented announcement, Bloomberg has admitted to a fall in terminal numbers, revealing a four per cent drop from November last year. The statement was released late Tuesday, the day before the publication of second quarter 2009 results from Thomson Reuters, which highlight the positive outlook in the diversified vendor’s non-financial services professional division.

FiNETIK recommends:

Challenging Year for Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg and Financial Information/analysis Market, 17.02.2009

For the fixed income market the Bloomberg terminal has long been a required market data expense. However, in the current economic environment many banks, in an effort to reduce costs, have been systematically routing out unused, redundant, or not-exactly-required, expensive Bloomberg Terminals.

There is a cottage industry of third party services which offer banks software to monitor the network specifically for unused Bloomberg data. This March, Societe Generale signed an agreement with Nyse Technologies to use its Data Access and Reporting Tools (Dart) Usage Analysis for Bloomberg terminals as part of its market data cost reduction programme.

Bloomberg told the Financial Times that its total terminal numbers fell by 11,470, or four per cent from a peak last November of 268,800. Sales of the black screens had been growing at 25,000-30,000 a year. The fall in terminal numbers has caused Bloomberg to make one-off payments to staff whose pay packages would otherwise have come in more than 20 per cent below expectations. The certificates it gives employees in place of share options, are valued by the rises and falls with net terminal installations.

The FT reports that in a presentation to employees yesterday, Bloomberg blamed “removals” by large firms for the fall in terminal numbers. However, the vendor also said the losses were offset by strong order flow from “tier two and tier three broker-dealers” and smaller hedge fund start-ups.

For the past few years Bloomberg has been fighting the conception that the Terminal is merely for use by bond traders; fielding account managers to train bank customers in the full line up of functions and instruments available within the Bloomberg system. The vendor has been using that same strategy to fight against removals in the name of cost cutting.

Bloomberg also said at the employee presentation that revenues over the past 12 months have risen, from $5.8 billion to $6.2 billion. This might be a result of the long subscription times required of Bloomberg clients.

Meanwhile, Thomson Reuters posted $3.3 billion in revenue for ongoing businesses across the group for the three months ending June 30, 2009.

However, while Thomson Reuters Professional Division, consisting of legal, tax & accounting and healthcare & science posted positive results, the core markets division showed a seven per cent decline. The division, which consists of sales & trading, investment & advisory, enterprise and media, reported revenue of $1.9 billion for the three months ending 30 June, 2009, down from the $2.1 billion posted in the year earlier period.

Despite the drop in overall revenue, Thomson Reuters enterprise division rose seven per cent against strong results from a year ago, when organic revenues grew 14%. Enterprise sales continue to benefit from strong customer demand for reference data, independently validated pricing services and data to automate front, middle, and back office applications.

Revenues for sales & trading decreased one per cent due to lower foreign exchange transaction volumes, a six per cent decline in recoveries and a drop-off in desktop sales, offset by growth in commodities & energy and Tradeweb.

Revenues for investment & advisory were unchanged for the quarter. However, the vendor reported a high demand for ThomsonOne.com among mid-sized and boutique investment banks.

CEO Tom Glocer comments: “Our revenues continued to grow in both the professional and markets divisions, which is a testament not only to the choice and balance of the markets in which we operate, but also the strength of our franchises in the challenging financial services and legal segments.”

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, News, , , , , , , ,

May 5, 2009 • 9:48 am 0

BM&FBOVESPA Provides Investors With Direct Access to the Brazilian Derivatives Market via Bloomberg Tradebook

BM&FBOVESPA has just authorized Bloomberg Tradebook do Brasil Ltda to act as a provider of direct market access (DMA), which will allow investors to connect directly to the Exchange’s derivatives trading system, or Global Trading System (GTS). This authorization will allow Bloomberg to offer its customers an order routing system via the infrastructure that is furnished by Bloomberg, with its hardware and software structure located in an external data processing facility that is independent from BM&FBOVESPA.

The system works as follows: after obtaining an authorization from a brokerage house to trade contracts in the BM&F segment, the investor will establish a direct physical connection to the order book of the Exchange’s GTS derivatives trading system. This physical connection is accomplished directly between Bloomberg and the Exchange through the Financial Community Communication Network (RCCF), allowing orders to be sent to BM&FBOVESPA through a proprietary FIX session, without transmitting the data through the brokerage house’s network.

The connection between the investor and the Exchange, however, is monitored by the brokerage house that provided the access so as to enable it to control the customer’s order flow. The brokerage houses that are interested in using the services of Bloomberg Tradebook must contract these services directly from Bloomberg.

With the adherence of Bloomberg Tradebook do Brasil Ltda., BM&FBOVESPA now has two DMA access providers for the derivatives and futures markets. The service related to the routing of orders to the GTS, which has been provided by the company Marco Polo since January of 2009, is also available to all the CME Group Globex system users. Other companies are currently in the process of obtaining authorization and will soon offer similar services, which will further facilitate the access of investors to all the products offered by the Brazilian Exchange.

Source:BM&FBOVESPA, 04.05.2009

Filed under: BM&FBOVESPA, Brazil, Exchanges, Latin America, News, Trading Technology, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 17, 2009 • 7:07 pm 2

Challenging Year for Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg and Financial Information/analysis Market

Burton-Taylor International Consulting LLC, a leading financial news and market data research, strategy and business consulting organization, today released research showing the market shares of industry leaders Thomson Reuters (TRI) and Bloomberg to have increased slightly in 2008 to 34% and 24% respectively. The overall spend on financial information and analysis globally was flat year-on-year, as the industry exited 2008 at US$23.01 billion versus US$22.99 billion in 2007.

Although distant in terms of revenue, the fastest growing major data providers in the industry were FactSet, Interactive Data Corporation (IDC) and SIX Telekurs which now enjoy 2.5%, 3.3% and 1.2% global share respectively. The fact that the third, fourth and fifth biggest players hold less than 4% market share each only serves to underscore the duopolistic nature of the current market data industry.

Asia led all regions in 2008 with a 20.3% increase in spend, while Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) grew at just under 7% and the Americas contracted by almost 10%. Thomson Reuters is the market share leader, with Bloomberg second, in each of the three regions. Quick sits third in Asia while SIX Telekurs is third in EMEA and IDC third in the Americas.

Burton-Taylor data shows that exiting 2008 the largest segment, in terms of total information and analysis spend worldwide, is Fixed Income/FX Sales & Trading. Investment Management is second largest, followed by Equity Sales & Trading, Corporate, Wealth Management, Commodities & Energy and a dramatically smaller Investment Banking segment.

A challenging year in 2009 is projected by Burton-Taylor, with negative 1-3% growth seen for the industry. The Americas will continue to contract. EMEA will remain flat but be supported by growth in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Asia’s growth rate will be significantly less than recent years but still reach the low to mid-single digits, fueled by external investment from Japan and internal investment in China.

“Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg will face differing challenges and changing business focuses in 2009,” says Douglas B. Taylor, Managing Partner of Burton-Taylor. “At TRI, feeding the appetites of the growing ‘low latency’ and risk management monsters, as well as continuing to establish a foothold against strong competitor Dow Jones in the machine readable news market, are key priorities. At the same time, launching a new financial video service and rebuilding equity news to leverage their desktop dominance in the North American Wealth Management space will test the Company’s ability to both invest and seek overall margin improvement.”

“At Bloomberg the attention is directed at finding new revenue outside the core terminal business,” Taylor says. “Commitments to high margin datafeed sales, and to improved news coverage in China, are seen as significant opportunities, but successfully capitalizing on the strategies without cannibalizing existing revenue will require creative commercial models and deft execution in areas that are relatively new to the company.”

According to Taylor, “Both TRI and Bloomberg are facing these challenges at a time when the revenue insulation provided by their dwindling two and three year client contracts is rapidly eroding. Additionally, IDC’s continued aggressive approach to pricing and SIX Telekurs’ continued strong organic and acquisition-based growth may begin to dent the market shares of the ‘Big 2’. Maintaining revenue by Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg over the next 12-24 months will be strictly on the merit of their strategic planning and execution. Both companies are leaning heavily upon their proprietary news capabilities to help drive growth, which is one reason that Burton-Taylor in the coming weeks intend to publish the first ever, detailed comparative study of Bloomberg News versus Reuters News.”

“Because market participants are finding it increasingly difficult to differentiate services, we believe that our study ‘Bloomberg vs Reuters News – Analysis of International Services 2009’; a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Bloomberg News and Reuters News including regional and international content, daily and hourly volume, 3rd party redistribution, coverage breadth, coverage depth and commentary comparison, will provide a transparency and illumination that improves competition between industry participants and profitability of industry clients,” say Taylor.

Source: Burton-Taylor Internationalm 17.02.2009

Filed under: Corporate Action, Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, News, Reference Data, Trading Technology, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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