A Wikipedia for Traders
By STEVEN M. SEARS
ON WALL STREET, MANY ENTREPRENEURS HAVE USED technology to revolutionize trading systems. Now comes John J. Lothian, a senior executive at broker Price Futures Group, who wants to change how investors get information about global markets.
Lothian has created a Website called MarketsWiki, which runs on the same technology that powers the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Wiki is the name of software that lets people create collaborative Websites. Lothian is using this software to capture and express the collective knowledge swirling around trading desks and exchanges about the global stocks, futures, options and environmental markets.
Fact by fact, Lothian and a 10-member development team are creating an encyclopedia about the people, processes, products and institutions that form the global capital markets. MarketsWiki complements Lothian's widely read electronic newsletter, which offers market insiders a daily compendium of financial news and the occasional trenchant editorial from the publisher.
Lothian wants MarketsWiki to be the primary portal for investors looking for information about multi-asset-class trading. The phrase essentially refers to making markets or trading related assets like stocks, options and futures. This trading modality has long been discussed at options bourses as the exchange model of the future. Recent mergers of U.S. and European stock and options exchanges have made multi-asset- class trading an attainable reality.
Yet finding trader-oriented information to help navigate this new frontier is not so easy. "Try searching any exchange or regulator Website," says Lothian. "The search functionality stinks. Wiki search is great, and users can improve the search function by editing pages and highlighting keywords." MarketsWiki is funded by sponsors, including many exchanges.
MarketsWiki is easy to use, and information is presented in the familiar, crisp Wikipedia format. The content, however, is distinctly Wall Street. Say you want information about corn futures. Last Thursday, Wikipedia lacked such a page; MarketsWiki had one.
On MarketsWiki an investor could learn the "surge in global corn (maize) demand from rising food production, notably in emerging markets like China, and its growing use in bio-fuels has pushed up both prices and volumes in corn-related risk-management products."
Sources for entries are listed at the bottom of the page, just as on Wikipedia. But not everyone can edit or add content. Those privileges are reserved for MarketsWiki staff and subscribers to the John J. Lothian Newsletter and the Environmental Markets Newsletter. Nothing is anonymous, and readers can see who edited each entry.
MarketsWiki's viewers come from major U.S and European financial capitals, and also from some rather unexpected places. Lothian reports viewers from Lichtenstein, Ethiopia, Paraguay, Egypt, Monaco, Norway, Croatia, South Africa, South Korea, Lebanon and China.
The interest in multiple-asset trading is clearly there. Now, it's up to the exchanges to deliver on the innovations promised by their recent mergers. |
