With all the hoopla surrounding high-frequency trading, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it is  part of a much larger phenomenon, namely automated trading.

Automated trading, which as its name suggests is machine-driven and electronic, is the umbrella under which methodologies such as high-frequency, algorithmic, and quantitative reside. A common denominator is the need for heavy-duty number crunching, a complex task made more complex by the sheer volume of numbers at hand.

The explosion of ‘Big Data’ has affected all industries, but the financial markets have its own unique set of issues, such as the need to capture time-series data and merge it with real-time event processing systems. For many market participants, point-to-point speed isn’t necessarily a trump card.

“We see a fundamental shift in focus from low latency to Big Data,” said James McIness, chief executive of trading-platform provider Embium. “It’s not about being fastest, it’s about being able to process tons of data. Lower trading volumes have forced people to trade multiple asset classes, which means more data to analyze.”

Embium, which is a sounded-out acronym of the first letters of the last names of company founders McInnes, chief financial officer Ben Bittrolff, and chief technology officer Dr. Peter Metford, recently changed its name from Cyborg Trading Systems and opened a New York office. The five-year-old company re-branded to highlight its approach to trading automation for institutional investors.

“We wanted our new corporate name, Embium, to convey our focus on servicing institutional customers and to better reflect the sophistication of our product offering,” said McInnes. “We have seen tremendous growth for cloud technology in the financial industry and opening an office at 90 Broad Street, New York, will allow us to better meet this demand.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE MAY-JUNE ISSUE OF MARKETS MEDIA MAGAZINE