Via TradersMagazine

Nasdaq OMX announced on Monday it has acquired the machine-readable news company RapiData, getting Nasdaq into the business of providing trading firms and financial institutions with the latest government and economic news.

RapiData delivers economic indictors directly to market participants as soon as the data becomes available so firms can incorporate macroeconomic news into their trading strategies. Brian Hyndman, senior vice president for Nasdaq OMX global data products, said RapiData’s offerings would be a welcome addition to Nasdaq’s existing lineup of data products and services. Hyndman added that while the delivery speed of RapiData is currently comparable to that of competitors, Nasdaq plans to use its own resources to improve data speeds.

“What I want to do is take our expertise here at Nasdaq and bring in our network of engineers to make sure it’s the fastest in the industry going forward,” Hyndman said. “We’ll be focused on making sure it is low latency."

Currently, RapiData has access to more than three dozen U.S. economic indicators and other economic data, including a wide variety of statistics from the Departments of Labor, Treasury and Commerce. Hyndman said that based on client demand the service could add other data types, such as corporate earnings, unstructured news events and possibly even social networking information. Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg and Dow Jones all offer their own versions of machine-readable news feeds. Clients of the systems include high-frequency traders, but also more long-tem investors, including firms trading futures and options.

According to Hyndman, many HFT firms have backed away from strategies using machine readable news, but they could come back to those strategies, especially if additional content becomes available in a machine-readable format.