Big data in capital markets

Over the past decade global securities markets have dramatically changed. Evolution of market structure in combination with advances in computer technologies led to emergence of electronic securities trading. Securities transactions that used to be conducted in person and over the phone are now predominantly executed by automated trading systems. This resulted in significant fragmentation of the markets, vast increase in the exchange volumes and even greater increase in the number of orders. In this talk we present and analyze forces behind the wide proliferation of electronic securities trading in US stocks and options markets. We also make a high-level introduction into electronic securities market structure. We discuss trading objectives of different classes of market participants and analyze how their activity affects data volumes. We also present typical securities trading firm data flow and analyze various types of data it uses in its trading operations. We close with the implications this "sea change" has on DBMS requirements in capital markets.