Financial Times Reports On High-Tech Quote Service, But London Exchange Denies Everything

Officials at the London Stock Exchange deny reports published in the Financial Times that the LSE plans a "radically improved," satellite-delivered version of its Topic quote service. The new service, says the FT, would allow Topic to offer more data, and would ease capacity problems that recently plagued the system (MTR, November 1986).

The April 7th report "got one or two people frothing and bubbling here," says Roger Faulkes, head of marketing at the LSE's Information Services unit. "One or two members of the exchange said, 'Hmm, nobody told us about this.'" Faulkes says he thinks FT reporter David Thomas confused the LSE's forthcoming TV broadcast service (MTR, December 1986) with other developmental projects and came to the wrong conclusions. The story itself contained no direct quotes or attributions.

"Of course we're looking at satellites," says Faulkes. "Everybody's looking at satellites. We'd be crazy if we weren't looking at satellite distribution of information." The LSE has conducted limited Ku-band satellite tests in conjunction with Comsat and Mercury (MTR, August 1986), but Faulkes insists these were purely a "research study." As for the TV broadcast system, "there's no way that it's a replacement for Topic," he says.

According to the FT, the new LSE system would allow Topic to provide "prices from all the world's leading stock markets" and would "pitch the stock market into headlong competition with international information companies, such as Reuters." The service would be "one of the most extensive and sophisticated private communications systems using satellite technology in the U.K.," it says.