MARKET DATA NEWSFLASHES

Telekurs (USA), the Stamford, Conn.-based market-data provider, has completed enhancements to its internal data-distribution system. The enhancements come from the use of InfoDyne Corporation's ticker-plant technology, TPS+Plus. Chicago-based InfoDyne, a provider of direct-exchange feed ticker-plant systems, enables Telekurs to offer its customers in the Americas real-time data, sourced directly from the local-market sources. In addition, American data that was previously processed overseas, creating a time delay, can now be processed and distributed locally. Telekurs also gains InfoDyne's scalable architecture in order for the market-data vendor to accommodate for the possibility of increased message volumes. The project was a joint effort in order to integrate data from Telekurs' proprietary data-collection system into TPS+Plus architecture. The output is published in Telekurs' MDF stream format.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved fees for the Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine, according to a report on the Dow Jones Newswires. The fees are intended to cover the first year of operating costs for TRACE, the corporate-bond price-reporting system operated by the NASD, which were estimated to be about $12 million, according to the Bond Market Association. In a November letter to the SEC, the BMA urged the SEC not to assign fees until the costs of TRACE were publicly cited. "Without this detail," the letter stated, "it is impossible to establish that the costs, and therefore the fee structure that supports those costs, are reasonable; and it is impossible to determine if the fees equitably allocate the expenses among persons using TRACE."

The Buttonwood Tree Group, a London-based technology-consulting firm, has agreed to work with UFJ International to bring down market-data costs at its London office. The global-investment banking arm of UFJ Bank Limited of Japan, is tapping into Buttonwood Tree Group for review of its market-data environment, without impacting daily trading business. The consultancy's review has so far found cost-savings of more than 25 percent of the firm's annual budget. In addition, Buttonwood Tree Group is assisting the firm in establishing a future strategy for streamlining market-data products and vendors. Buttonwood Tree Group has partnered with Market Data Services Ltd. to provide the firm with software tools to enable its processes and procedures for managing market-data environments.