Addressing the Data Management Challenge in Asset Management

Abstract

The need for good data is not new. Ever since the Assyrians invented accounting 7,000 years ago, reliable data has always been a key requirement for running a business. In that respect, the investment management industry is no different. Even before computers arrived on the scene in the 1960s, reliable information, such as closing prices or positions, had always been a critical driver of business success. The market ticker tape was invented in the 1870s precisely in order to deliver stock price information in a quicker way to market participants so that they could trade more rapidly and frequently. It was the failure of that ticker to keep up the pace that spawned investor panic in the stock market crash of 1929. Later, in the 1960s, the market data company Datastream grew out of UK stockbroker Hoare Govett’s internal data management operations.¹ Data has always been one of the indispensible requirements for investing.