AJAX and data push make beautiful music together. The value is two-fold: customers get useful, attractive interfaces while ensuring that the data in question — be it numerical or even headline news — arrives on their desk fresh, crispy, and with little latency.

Lightstreamer provides a push engine for data distribution that sends information to any compatible browser. They have four products, seemingly named after Starbuck’s drink sizes (Moderato, Allegro, etc.) The heaviest package, Vivace, includes SDK for web client and .NET developm,ent along with unlimited concurrent users and thick or zero client support, depending on your in-house needs.

The software is free on a trial basis while pricing depends on the implementation (”One Moderato, please, my good man!”) and number of seats.

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Algorithmic trading has exploded over the last several years. At the end of the day the jury is still out as to whether algorithmic trading will maintain its current level of volume as well as how effective it will be as their usage increases. There are still only a handful of well known trading algorithms that are offered by nearly all sell-side firms as well as 3rd party firms, and you’ve probably heard of them by now; VWAP, TWAP, Pegging, Percent of Vol, etc. Each firm will have a slightly different take on these algorithms as well as a fancy name for their flavor. This makes keeping track of algorithm offerings rather difficult.

I was quite pleased to find this very cool resource that lets you quickly view all firms offering algorithmic, as well as the exact name of their service offerings and the algorithms themselves. The tool is so good it also provides information on each service’s order management system compatibility, cost structure, client demographics, and order execution system.

This is a huge time saver and a very interesting way to gauge the algorithmic offerings and where they’re headed.

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