Alternative data
BlackRock looks to predictive ESG data, rather than point-in-time
Mary-Catherine Lader says that the asset manager is building out new modeling tools to help users better understand how the decisions a company makes today can affect their performance in the future.
State Street focuses on 6 data vendors for ESG analysis
State Street’s Chris Berry explains how the asset servicer winnowed 60 ESG data providers down to six, and why this strategy has proved to be effective.
Goldman taps alt data for economic forecasts during pandemic
Economists at the bank leveraged a combination of public and third-party data to make conclusions about the future during uncertain times.
US pension fund teams up with academics to cut through ESG fog
Pension Reserves Investment Management and MIT’s business school are looking to improve ESG data and to reflect all investors’ views.
Vendors Continue to Move Products, Services to the Cloud: Some Examples
Last year, most (if not all) financial technology providers either completed or started major projects that involved moving their products and services to the cloud. WatersTechnology looks at 15 of the more interesting cloud-migration initiatives from…
FactSet, Snowflake Take Aim at Financial Data Mapping Challenges
FactSet’s mapping service, Concordance, can be used on its own or with Snowflake’s cloud, enabling users to apply the offering to other datasets in Snowflake’s ecosystem.
Quants Find New Ways to Identify Inventive Companies
Buy-side firms are using patent and other types of data to identify trailblazer companies from phonies.
Waters Wrap: App Interop in 2020 (And Tony’s Fave Stories From Last Year)
Anthony takes a look at some of the major projects that involved application interoperability from last year. The list includes feats by Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Barclays, ICE, State Street, Refinitiv, and FactSet.
How Will Covid Lessons Reshape Financial Tech in 2021?
As 2020 comes to a close, Anthony looks at how firms have adjusted their short- and long-term plans in the face of the coronavirus, focusing on office space, innovation, alt data, and mental health.
Machine Learning in the Capital Markets 2020: ML Spreads During Pandemic
WatersTechnology looks at how 10 different firms are embedding machine learning algorithms into their platforms and tools.
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Asia at the Forefront of Innovation—A Look at Tech Projects in the Region
WatersTechnology looks at some of the major projects coming out of Asia that are leading the way for firms around the globe.
The ABCs of NLP: How Trading Firms Used NLP to Navigate 2020
This year, natural language processing came to the fore in capital markets, helping firms of all kinds parse huge, unstructured datasets.
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.
Platts Unveils Trade Vision API for Natural Gas Price Submitters
The latest release builds off of lingering automation needs within last year's phase-one Trade Vision database launch.
‘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.
Facteus Makes Consumer-Spend Data Available in Real Time via Bloomberg Terminal
Facteus officials say Bloomberg's clients will benefit from being able to assess the impact of consumer-spending data on macroeconomic indicators.
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.
People Moves: Liquidnet, Quandl, State Street, CloudMargin, Greenwich Associates, Mediant, GLMX
A look at some of the key people moves from this week, including Steven Nichols (pictured) who has been appointed head of NLP and unstructured data at Liquidnet.
Fermi’s New Paradox: If AI Analysts Are So Obvious, Where is Everybody?
UBS AM’s Bryan Cross says the goal of embedding AI in the investment process has failed because the aim has been misguided.
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.
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.