Are data centers utilities?

Another good post from Mechanical Markets. This time the question is raised if data centers are utilities or not. Given the latency driven compitition, being in the same DC as the exchange can be very profitable. However, it comes at a cost. And one can question to what extend exchanges and data centers are willing and able to provide space to all participants.

And this is exactly what happened in the Nordics between Verizon, Burgundy and Nasdaq OMX. The exchange abused its position in the market and forced Verizon to deny Burgundy acces to the DC in which Nasdaq OMX was providing co-lo services and hosting its matching engines. 

All in all, there are very good and compelling arguments to start seeing DC as utilities! 

You can read the blog here.

Time-stamps

Bloomberg published an article on synchronizing the exchange clocks. Not a big deal you might think but then you're wrong. A lot of infrastructure is worthless without having an accurate idea of when something was traded. 

ESMA is taking this a step further: they want to see nanosecond accuracy on time stamps. You can read the article here.

EDIT: Interesting post from some professionals on time recording. What the ESMA is looking for, is extremely difficult to deliver outside of a lab setting. Read their blog post here

A new exchange is trying to change the world of derivatives trading in the US

trueEX Group LLC, a fairly new exchange in the US, gained considerable market share in Interest Rate Swaps without support of the big US investment banking community.

Read the full story here.