New technology has given computers access to a field that was once the exclusive domain of the human brain-interpreting the news in relation to trading decisions. Elementized news feeds, where data are shredded and tagged for relevance, can now be used to trigger trading decisions by algorithmic trading systems.
Progress Apama, a software provider specializing in algorithmic trading technology, and news provider Dow Jones have taken this a step further, and teamed up to give users the content and the platform in one package.
John Bates, founder and vice president of Apama Products, Progress Software, said: “News can move the market. The fastest trader to react has the advantage. The fastest trader is now an algorithm.”
The two firms will offer tagged, computer-readable data from the Dow Jones elementized news feed via a custom news adapter on the Apama platform. The package enables financial institutions to build, test and deploy algorithmic trading strategies that can analyze and react to news.
Apama strategies can now read news events, analyze specifically tagged information such as the non-farm payrolls number, and combine that analysis with analyses of other market data. This, the firm believes, allows its users to react first, and trade as effectively as a human. Dow Jones launched its elementized feed in March, and Reuters launched a similar feed in May.
