Trading Tech Talk 56: Can a Watchlist App Be Sexy?

08/02/16 • 62 min

Trading Tech Talk

CTO Interview: Today we are featuring Jason Pang, CEO of Sparkfin.

He discusses:

What is Sparkfin?
What makes the Sparkfin Watchlist app unique?
What was the genesis of this? Were the Sparkfin people just fed up with current watchlist offerings?
Is the plan to remain a standalone service or to license the app to brokers as essentially a plug-and-play community module?
Is it possible to execute through the app directly?
Does Sparkfin offer curated lists as well? How does that work? Who curates them?
What about paper trading / tracking? Can that be done through the app?
Any plan to expand beyond stocks in the future?

The Inbox: Listener questions and comments

Question from Alan Fromme - What is the future of market data? Will we ever see an era when the great monopolies are broken, and this data comes freely, or reasonably available to all?
Question from NanFan - Caught you panel and the after show on your network. Great job particularly on the market data. I particularly enjoyed hearing the smaller firms perspective. It seems like market data is an endless black hole of costs for firms like that. Is there any hope for new firms in this space when it comes to pushing back on market data fees? Perhaps regulatory relief or a coalition of market data vendors that can push back against the exchange monopolies?

CTO Interview: Today we are featuring Jason Pang, CEO of Sparkfin.

He discusses:

What is Sparkfin?
What makes the Sparkfin Watchlist app unique?
What was the genesis of this? Were the Sparkfin people just fed up with current watchlist offerings?
Is the plan to remain a standalone service or to license the app to brokers as essentially a plug-and-play community module?
Is it possible to execute through the app directly?
Does Sparkfin offer curated lists as well? How does that work? Who curates them?
What about paper trading / tracking? Can that be done through the app?
Any plan to expand beyond stocks in the future?

The Inbox: Listener questions and comments

Question from Alan Fromme - What is the future of market data? Will we ever see an era when the great monopolies are broken, and this data comes freely, or reasonably available to all?
Question from NanFan - Caught you panel and the after show on your network. Great job particularly on the market data. I particularly enjoyed hearing the smaller firms perspective. It seems like market data is an endless black hole of costs for firms like that. Is there any hope for new firms in this space when it comes to pushing back on market data fees? Perhaps regulatory relief or a coalition of market data vendors that can push back against the exchange monopolies?

Previous Episode

Trading Tech Talk 55: Moving Futures to the Cloud

CTO Interview: Today Mark and Henry are joined by Ryan Hansen, President of the new futures brokerage, Tradovate.

They discuss:

What is Tradovate?
The benefits of multi-platform trading applications
Membership pricing advantages
Futures leading the way in tech
Does the cost include payment for order flow?
Will options ever be included on the platform?
You can find out more at tradovate.com/trial

Hot Topics in Tech: What is happening in trading technology?

Silicon Valley to the rescue? The Long-Term Stock Exchange
IEX: all they want is a speedbump
Trading prompted by social media: CBOE S-Factors
Petterfy looks at the future of the brokerage space

Next Episode

Trading Tech Talk 57: Talking StockTwits and Stocktoberfest with Howard Lindzon

CTO Interview: Today we are featuring Howard Lindzon, Founder of StockTwits, and Founder of Wallstrip.

He discusses:

Wallstrip and its flip to CBS
The genesis and evolution of StockTwits
Twitter pulling the rug out from under StockTwits
How does StockTwits generate revenue?
Stocktoberfest (Register today for Stocktoberfest)

Hot Topics in Tech: IEX finally approved putting a 350 millisecond speed bump in place. Only two stocks will be available to trade on the opening day on Friday with another eight securities will start trading on IEX August 24 - August 29, IEX will begin listing a much wider universe, including all NYSE and Nasdaq-listed stocks. Renaissance Technologies hopes to use physics to battle Wall Street speed demons. Their plan involves algorithms, servers and the worlds most accurate timekeeper currently used for GPS satellites and deep space exploration, the atomic clock.