Datafeeds - alternatives and approx costs

Patrik · Post by **Patrik** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 10:37 pm

I'm trying to get some rough numbers for datafeed costs. I could call around but right now I do not want to get sucked into their net and receive annoying sell calls, just some estimates.

What I am interested in is:

- US stocks (the most illiquid ones irrelevant)

- Major futures contracts

- Major FX rates

The data:

- As much historical intraday data as possible

- Realtime feed

- A nice API (C++/C or .NET)

Bridge and Reuters are in my personal situation practical (infrastructure reasons), but they do not carry much intraday history though..

What are you guys using and what are the approx price tag? (if you don't mind sharing)

Is it perhaps better to get historical data from one vendor and realtime feed from another?

FDAXHunter · Post by **FDAXHunter** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 9:32 am

Patrik,

For the situation you describe I'd say CQG (www.cqg.com) is your best bet.

They offer the cleanest and most extensive historical data, as well as massive intraday data on the things you are looking for (Futures, Foreign Exchange and US Stocks, as well as pretty much every thing else you come accross as a trader).

They offer an Excel interface and a COM interface.

Plus, theirs is a very integrated product, you basically have one client and that's it. No DB Servers, no nothing. Very impressive product.

Pricing wise, for the things you want you are looking around 1,100 EUR a month would be my guess (just a guess, don't quote me on that). However, they offer a two week free trial.

Also, they don't cram a 2 year contract down your throat like Reuters or Bloomberg. 30 day cancellation period, that's all. Very handy if you are a large institution that has a big fluctuation in Trading/Research personel.

Do not be misled by their website, it doesn't look very attractive.... but, if I had to put my name on any data vendor ("FDAXHunter approved")... it would be CQG.

Hope this helps.

Patrik · Post by **Patrik** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:12 am

CQG seems to have a good rep among its users - that is always a good sign.

thanks for the input!

Patrik · Post by **Patrik** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:57 pm

FDAX,

Is there a way of interfacing CQG from a unix client (any unix..) ?

Would you happen to know if they happen to carry japanese equities? Or a better question might be if they have some kind list of instruments they carry. I found a list of what they sell historical data for, but my impression is that this is just a sample.

FDAXHunter · Post by **FDAXHunter** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:45 pm

Patrik,

I know there are guys running CQG on UNIX. If this is important to you, I can find out more. What do you mean by interfacing? Do you actually mean getting data into a UNIX system? Worst comes to worst you can always build a TCP pipe out of whatever Windows emulator you are running, shouldn't be too much trouble, but I gotta talk to them anyway, I'll ask 'em.

They cover Japanese equities.

Regards.

Patrik · Post by **Patrik** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 10:34 pm

yes, I means getting data into unix. not a high priority - just something that is nice to have.

they seem to cover pretty much everything I am interested in except scandinavian equities from what I can see.

I will give them a try as you suggested.

M1kz · Post by **M1kz** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 11:02 am

In the process of initiating trading according to:

- Investment strategy : Multi system, multi time-horizon, multi-market diversified futures trading on a global basis (major part of return generated by earning the commodity hedging demand premia, i.e. providing risk transfer to commercial hedgers, on a diversified portfolio of commodities)

- Tech: In-house C# environment for back-testing the strategies above with dynamic portfolio allocation and intraday strategy development and evaluation capacity and extensive strategy performance/risk reporting

- Need: A pricefeed for futures data that enables interfacing (API) with a portfolio monitoring environment developed in C# (inhouse)

Suggestions? Pricing? Alternatives to CQG? Need a sanity check on the prices offered by brokers.

Cheers,

M.

Johnny · Post by **Johnny** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 11:16 am

If it's just the price feed you need then a cheap and cheerful possibility is DTN IQ Feed.

FDAXHunter · Post by **FDAXHunter** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:05 pm

Tenfore is another data feed you maybe want to look at. Haven't personally used it, but don't hear anyting horrible. Shouldn't be that expensive I don't think (maybe 300 EUR a month? I'm guessing.)

jungle · Post by **jungle** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:08 pm

it is (or was) horrible. not very robust pricing and wack customer service.