Financial Market Data Web Services – Xignite Blog

One of the most common financial applications of Xignite on-demand market data is portfolio management software.  Portfolio management software is used by a wide range of Xignite customers including asset managers, wealth managers, hedge funds, financial advisers, broker-dealers and publishers of online portfolio websites.   Each portfolio management software customer has unique requirements that vary across asset classes and update frequencies, however, the hit calculation required to select the right Xignite Web services subscription plans is essentially the same.

This is the third post in a blog series on hit calculation that will provide detailed example calculations for portfolio management software applications.  The first post and second post in this series provided a comprehensive hit calculation tutorial as well as a general hit calculation spreadsheet. The examples in this post are also available in this sample portfolio management software hit calculation spreadsheet.

Single Hit Data Block for Portfolio Management Software

Every portfolio management software application Read more

With 10 stock quote data services to choose from, it can get confusing which one is right for you.  So, for those of you looking for a source of stock quote data, I thought I’d post a few simple tips to help you quickly find exactly which stock quote data services are just right for your needs.

Quick Comparison Chart

Here’s a quick breakdown of our stock quote data web services, including key features to help you decide which service has the stock quote data you’re looking for.

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At Xignite, most of our Web service subscription plans are quoted according to a uniform usage metric known as “hits.” Estimating the number of hits you need for your application is straightforward, once you get the basic idea. However, for the first time customer it can be a little cryptic. So, we’re providing this blog series to help you through the calculation process.

The first post in this blog series provided a comprehensive hit calculation tutorial and provided a hit calculation spreadsheet that covers all usage scenarios and introduced the following formula for calculating monthly hits:

Monthly Hits =
Hits per Data Block x Request Population x Request Frequency x 1 month

It’s a great general reference, however, the vast majority of applications fall into a few standard usage scenarios where it’s possible to dramatically simplify this formula. This second post in the series surveys these standard usage scenarios and guides you through the process of simplifying the hit calculation to something you actually can do on the back of an envelope.

It Doesn’t Need to Be Perfect

First, here’s a word to the wise. Xignite subscription plans span an enormous range of usage scenarios, from 600 hits up to 60,000,000 hits and beyond. For most Xignite Web services, each subscription plan is separated by a 10X factor in usage, i.e., 6K, 60K, 600K, 6M, etc. That’s a huge step between each level (and a huge volume discount)! Therefore, your hit calculations don’t need to be anything close to perfect. And, if it turns out your usage is different from the original estimate, you can simply change your subscription plan when it comes up for renewal. Hit estimates only require back-of-the-envelope estimates that are accurate within a factor of 10X and can be done in minutes, so you can decide which subscription plan fits your needs. The tips that follow will help you do just that.

Identify the Request Frequency Scenario

For most applications, the request frequency is the single most important factor in determining the subscription plan required. Read more

One of the huge benefits of cloud computing is low risk pay-as-you-go, usage-based pricing.  Unfortunately, if you are counting usage by anything other than users, then choosing the best subscription plan for your needs can get a little tricky.

At Xignite, we use a uniform usage metric known as “hits” across all of our Web services to simplify things.  Estimating the number of hits you need for your application is straightforward, once you get the basic idea.  However, for the first time customer it can be a little cryptic.  So, we’re providing this short tutorial and some handy tools to help you through the hit calculation process. The short story is that if you can convert inches to miles, ounces to liters, and Fahrenheit to Celsius, then you’ll have no trouble understanding how to estimate your hits, because the math required is essentially the same.

Before slugging through the general approach for calculating hits, let’s do a simple example to get familiar with the concepts involved.  Suppose you have a website stock index widget that shows five common stock indices.  And, the pages that have the widget receive 10,000 pageviews per day.  If you use the GetDelayedValues operation of the XigniteIndices Web service, then each request to create the widget will cost 5 hits, one for each index.  Then your total monthly hits are calculated as follows:

1.5 million hits/month =
5 hits/widget x 1 widget/pageview x 10,000 pageviews/day x 30 days/month

Not so hard.  In particular, notice how the units attached to each factor cancel out to the proper units of the final answer (hits/month).

1.5 million hits/month =
5 hits/widget x 1 widget/pageview x 10,000 pageviews/day x 30 days/month

Checking the units is always a good QA method to test the accuracy of your calculation.  Just like converting inches to miles!

The post that follows generalizes this simple formula to provide a general method for calculating hits for any application using any Xignite Web service.

Each data block processed by a Web service operation entails a specific number of hits. Total hits are determined by the total number of data blocks processed in a given time window. Each time a trigger event occurs (request frequency), the Web service operation processes a certain number of data blocks (request population). In most cases, there is a fixed ratio between input data blocks and output data blocks and either can be used for hit calculation.

Relationship between Requests and Hits

Each time you call an Xignite Web service operation, you rack up some hits.  The number of hits depends on the data returned by the service, so you only pay for what you get. Read more

Algorithmic trading firms were put on notice last Monday when Commissioner Bart Chilton of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said that high frequency trading (HFT) and algorithmic trading firms should be made legally responsible for maintaining a minimum set of testing and monitoring standards to prevent future flash crashes.

The possibility that algorithmic trading firms may need to support new regulatory requirements highlights the rapidly growing importance of the market data cloud and new cloud services like NASDAQ Data-On-Demand for back testing purposes.

In a bid to resuscitate the heroes of 1980’s sitcoms, Mr. Chilton declared, “I want to be like MacGyver. Remember, he was always trying to prevent crime before it happened.” So if you’re a criminally culpable algorithmic trading firm, you’d best beware—especially if Mr. Chilton gets his hands on a paper clip and a stick of chewing gum. Household items aside, Mr. Chilton also plans to rely on tools such as a “kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.” He’d like algorithmic trading systems to be tested by either exchanges or regulators before going live. And after going live, he’d like algorithmic trading systems to be monitored on an on-going basis.

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