|
PureBytes Links
Trading Reference Links
|
The BMI announcement (at least that I'm aware of) concerned the options
segment of the datafeed... I'm not aware of any changes to the
stock/index portions.
I've spent some effort trying to get further info on these changes,
mostly in vain. As I understand it, BMI is getting rid of Bridge and
hooking the options segment directly into the same data source used for
the Signal options feed. Equity options on BMI now look pretty much
like the options subscription to Signal... no volume indicated until
daily trading exceeds 100 contracts, no bid/ask until after the first
trade, volumes over 100 today beget trade figures tomorrow, etc. Worst
of all though, the bid/ask figures on many (most?) options are no longer
accurate, even the ones already trading today. Trading on this kind of
data would be tantamount to throwing money away, in my judgement. So is
subscribing to it.
BMI admits this... initially the "gold" date for getting this right was
November 2... now it's November 30. BMI's "tech support" did not
provide this info, despite their best efforts... getting useful
information from BMI/TS is nearly impossible anymore, especially not in
any timely fashion.
My guess is that DBC decided that the subscription to Bridge was
duplicating what they already had for the options data that feeds
Signal, and they could save the $$$$ by merging the Signal and BMI
options feeds. I assume their position on trashing the per-trade and
continuous bid/ask prices was acceptable to the bulk of their customer
base. From what I read, the number of players in the retail options
trading business continues to decline almost daily, so perhaps they were
correct in their assessment.
I've also heard it said that DBC is shifting its BMI TradeStation and
Market Center clients off of BMI (over to Signal) after the first of the
year... looks to me like BMI as a unique product has come to the end of
its useful life and going to dust very soon. I'm certainly glad there
are still some competitive alternatives available.
Dick Crotinger
Lawrence Chan wrote:
>
> anyone has done some comparison lately among the feeds
> like BMI, FutureSource, DTN, etc. ?
>
> BMI mentioned that they are switching their stocks, index stuff
> over to direct exchange access ... and stripping away the
> info of exchange traded, which I find it a ripoff as a lot of stocks
> traded at the smaller exchanges have unreasonable prices during trading
> hrs and mixing the exchanges together will cause major damage to
> data collected ...
>
> What about SP pit vs BMI, how bad is it now in the time lag?
>
> -Lawrence
|