In the world of capital markets, the term low latency isn’t new. When we think about exactly who is benefiting from real-time updates, the sell-side investment banks, brokerage firms who are selling assets, securities or the latest derivative typically come to mind. We do not usually associate the advising institutions directly focused on buying - such as private equity firms or asset managers - with high speed trading. Traditionally, the buy-side has adopted a more cautious approach, focusing on how much return can be achieved from the risk outlaid in the initial trade by going through the normal sales trader route. But is this about to change? Are we about to see asset management firms turning their attention to a more automated route that requires ultra-low latency capabilities?
So, in the wake of NYSE Euronext's failed merger with Deutsche Borse, executives at the exchange group are clearly embarking on a Plan B. Part of that is the deal it announced on February 16, which will see it take a 25% stake in Fixnetix, a provider of co-located, managed services for low-latency market data, market access and pre-trade risk management. The "strategic investment" - which allows for a complete acquisition down the road - will see the two collaborate to offer their respective services on a global basis.
While it didn't make a splash about the event, latency monitoring specialist Correlix last week acknowledged that it has raised further capital from existing investors and hired former Island and Inet exec Richard Wilkins as vice president of sales, a position that has been vacant for a couple of years. Wilkins reports to founder and re-installed CEO Shawn Melamed, who is back in the top job for the foreseeable future following the departure of former CEO Dan Connell in November 2011.
The “Microburst” Problem
Datacom Systems - a vendor of network taps and matrix switches - 
The last week or so has seen significant action in the world of exchange co-location - a space (excuse the pun) that as a whole is hotter than ever - with happenings at CME Group and Nasdaq OMX.
Solarflare Communications has announced its ApplicationOnload Engine (AOE) - combining 10gE networking with FPGA technology that allows trading applications to run fully on a network card, for the lowest latency.
Brennan Carley is back at Reuters, albeit it's now Thomson Reuters and no doubt it has changed a bit since he was last there in a strategy role, around 1999/2000. His new job is as global head of the Elektron platform, the company's low-latency managed hosting/co-location business.
As anticipated, Bloomberg is opening up the interface via which it provides market data to other market data and application vendors, on a free-use basis. It's part of the vendor's Open Market Data Initiative, which also extends to market data symbology, as previously announced.