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A financial data vendor provides
market data ''For market data as used in marketing, see marketing information system'' In finance, market data is price and other related data for a financial instrument reported by a trading venue such as a stock exchange. Market data allows traders and ...
to financial firms, traders, and investors. The data distributed is collected from sources such as
stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for the ...
feeds,
broker A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...
s and dealer desks or regulatory filings (e.g. an
SEC filing The SEC filing is a financial statement or other formal document submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Public companies, certain insiders, and broker-dealers are required to make regular SEC filings. Investors and financia ...
).


History

Financial data vendors have been in existence as long as financial data has been available. The first technology that allowed data vendors to disseminate was the
ticker tape Ticker tape was the earliest electrical dedicated financial communications medium, transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines, in use from around 1870 through 1970. It consisted of a paper strip that ran through a machine called ...
starting in the 1870s. Financial data includes "pre-trade" such as bid/ask data necessary to price a
financial instrument Financial instruments are monetary contracts between parties. They can be created, traded, modified and settled. They can be cash (currency), evidence of an ownership interest in an entity or a contractual right to receive or deliver in the form ...
and post-trade data such as the last trade price and other
transaction data Transaction data, or transaction information, constitute a category of data describing transactions. Transaction data/information gather variables generally referring to reference data or master data – e.g. dates, times, time zones, currencies. ...
. From ticker tape to television cameras, from databases to websites this multibillion-dollar industry provides data to
trading room A trading room gathers traders operating on financial markets. The trading room is also often called the front office. The terms "dealing room" and " trading floor" are also used, the latter being inspired from that of an open outcry stock ex ...
s and consumers. Paper ticker tape became obsolete in the 1960s, as television and computers were increasingly used to transmit financial information. The concept of the stock ticker lives on, however, in the scrolling electronic tickers seen on brokerage walls and on news and financial television channels. Because the financial investment needed to provide the services needed, the industry had become ever more consolidated, but in 2004 it was forecast that the industry was beginning to fragment.


Industry size

According to the 2009 Burton-Taylor report, the Market Data industry exited 2009 at US$22.68 billion after closing 2008 at US$23.01 billion. In 2009, Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg market share were virtually even, at 29.4% and 29.2% respectively. The largest four financial data vendors represent the USD 15.222 billion tip of an enormous global market (2008 Annual figures) and employ tens of thousands of people.


Types of data

There are many different types of instruments (including stocks, bonds, funds, options, futures, currencies, etc.) and hundreds of different markets for investment, leading to an extremely large and hard to define universe of data. The types of data offered vary by vendor, and most typically cover information about entities (companies) and instruments (
shares In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...
, bonds etc.) which companies might issue. Typically, pricing data is sold separately from other related data, such as corporate actions and events, valuation information, fundamental data including company performance and
reference data Reference data is data used to classify or categorize other data. Typically, they are static or slowly changing over time. Examples of reference data include: * Units of measurement * Country codes * Corporate codes * Fixed conversion rates e.g. ...
on the entities and instruments themselves. In addition to market price data there are data known as market reference data, such as a ticker name, which describe securities, commodities and transactions. Intraday Data are prices provided during the day, they are usually released every 15 minutes. The majority of financial data vendors can access data during trading sessions but with the requirement that any inquiry be in reference to historical market analysis. Analysis of historical market data provides a larger snapshot of the market at the expense of timely information (time inbetween database updates).
Alternative data (finance) Alternative data (in finance) refers to data used to obtain insight into the investment process. These data sets are often used by hedge fund managers and other institutional investment professionals within an investment company. Alternative data ...
vendors offer non-traditional datasets, typically defined as those that do not originate from securities exchanges, regulatory disclosures, or economic release indicators. These are used by quantitative and fundamental investors to enhance portfolio returns. Examples include consumer transaction data, satellite imagery, vehicle movements, and web data, including social media data. With an estimated three out of four financial institutions housing alt-data teams as of 2020, and 90% of firms expanding their alt-data strategy, alternative data is now arguably mainstream.


Services offered

Most of the market differentiation between competitors is based on some combination of the following: * Delivery frequency - Data can be updated in Real-Time, Delayed, Conflated, or End of Day * Delivery latency - vendors offer different amounts of data latency, with lower latency typically being more expensive and more complex. An individual vendor may offer different products with different latencies. * Delivery method - Data is delivered either in a streaming format, or as snapshot files of streamed data, or as "end of day" files showing the position at the close of business of a certain market or region * Delivery transportation - Data can be delivered via Broadcast, Multicast, Satellite, Private Line, VPN, or Internet * Delivery format - Data can be encoded heavily to optimize performance, or can be left in simple formats to simplify databasing * Normalization and Data Model - Vendors collect from sources all around the world and then translates all of those formats into a single format (by vendor or by product) for consumption by either a
financial data processor Financial data processors are the next layer in the service chain between users of financial data and financial data vendors. Most data is now delivered as bits and bytes and not in a physical format. Data is fed through web pages and as "raw" dat ...
or by the end user. Each vendor typically has a different way of modelling financial data. * Reliability - High availability of data is a primary concern in the financial markets * Value Added Services - Data value can be improved by adding on related services such as listing information, share data, fundamental data, time series, historical data, etc. * Local experience - Larger data vendors have sales and service offices and data centers worldwide in major financial centers in the US, Europe and Asia. This allows their customers to access local expertise without having to have a local presence.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Financial Data Vendor * Market data Financial metadata