“Across the industry, as sophistication levels increase, the demand for superior quality historical market data is intensifying. Market participants need easy access to global, ready-to-use data to improve their own products and strategies, gain a deeper understanding of liquidity dynamics, and generate alpha more predictably, without the burden of data engineering and infrastructure on their P&L.”
QuantHouse, the market data and trading infrastructure provider owned by Iress, has entered into a global partnership with BMLL, the independent provider of harmonized, Level 3, 2, and 1 historical data and analytics for the global equity and futures markets.
Level 3 data refers to the most granular data available about a security’s order book. It includes all the bids (buy orders) and offers (sell orders) for a security, showing not only the price and quantity of each order but also the identity of market participants placing those orders.
Providing a complete view of the trading activity and depth of the market for a given security, Level 3 data allows traders and institutions to see where orders are concentrated, understand market sentiment, and make informed decisions based on the depth of market demand and supply at various price levels.
Access to Level 3 data is typically restricted to market makers and participants with direct access to the trading floor or electronic trading systems, giving them an advantage in terms of market insight compared to those with access to Level 1 (best bid and offer prices) and Level 2 (order book data without participant identities) data.
Data is now harmonized and available in one format
The collaboration comes as a result of the completion of the data symbology mapping for both the QuantHouse real-time and the BMLL historical data sets.
QuantHouse’s real-time data services will now be complemented by BMLL’s full-depth historical order book data to support the buy-side community in understanding market behavior and testing investment strategies.
Data is now harmonized and available in one format, across all venues and all asset classes, to support faster research processes and enable clients to map liquidity dynamics with a greater degree of granularity to enhance trading performance.
The joint offering is expected to accelerate time to insights and time to market, enabling asset managers and hedge funds to backtest trading strategies and move from research into production at speed.
Faster time-to-market, execution, and trading performance
Jason Hoang, CEO of Global Trading and Market Data at Iress, said: “The partnership with BMLL makes absolute sense for our clients and is a game-changer for the industry. Accessing BMLL’s historical order book data, alongside our real-time data, in one harmonized format, reduces time to market and empowers the buy-side community to enhance their execution and trading performance. By partnering with BMLL, we remove cost and complexity and significantly lower the barriers to entry for financial institutions. Clients will benefit from immediate and flexible access to full-depth, real-time, and historical order book data, enabling them to carry out research, backtest their strategies, and ultimately improve their performance and will be especially valuable to those using machine learning and AI in their strategies.”
Paul Humphrey, CEO of BMLL, added: “We are very excited to collaborate with QuantHouse and support the needs of its global customer base. Across the industry, as sophistication levels increase, the demand for superior quality historical market data is intensifying. Market participants need easy access to global, ready-to-use data to improve their own products and strategies, gain a deeper understanding of liquidity dynamics, and generate alpha more predictably, without the burden of data engineering and infrastructure on their P&L. Our mission is to democratize access to high-quality Level 3, 2 and 1 order book data and analytics globally, and this partnership with Iress is an important milestone in our journey.”
