Big data is the most underappreciated emerging technology in markets, equity and fixed income investors surveyed in new research from Greenwich Associates have agreed.
The report surveyed 234 equity and fixed-income investors at buy-side firms across Europe and the US, finding that 30% of them thought big data was underappreciated.
“Data and analytics have clear potential, and while not every trader can make use of big data for trade ideas or trade executions, it’s clear that traders see that opportunity exists,” said the Greenwich Associates report.
“Fixed-income traders as a group are even more bullish on big data and alt data than equities. The amount of data available to fixed income traders has ballooned in the past decade, and we are in a phase in which market participants are working hard to put that data to work.”
Big data was followed by artificial intelligence (AI) which 27% of investors agreed was also underappreciated, while 25% stated blockchain technology was underappreciated.
Both the buy- and sell-side are expected to increase their spending on AI, blockchain, and cloud technologies by a third in the next two years, recent research from Broadridge found. The firm also found that 72% of firms in the UK were actively recruiting externally to help meet their technology needs.
Banks and brokers have upped efforts in the big data space recently amid increased demand from the buy-side. Virtu Financial recently rolled out two big data analytics tools to allow buy-side clients to manage data across trading strategy selection, cost attribution, and counterparty evaluation through a unified web-based technology framework.