Bloomberg looking to bypass Thomson Reuters on data side

Phillip Stafford and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson of the Financial Times report that Bloomberg LP is looking to offer traders a free, open software system that bypasses rival Thomson Reuters‘ code for identifying stocks.

Stafford and Edgecliffe-Johnson write, “It also represents part of Bloomberg’s push to build on Thomson Reuters’s long-running dispute with European antitrust officials into so-called market access codes, a lucrative business for the Canadian group.

“At the same time the increasing automation of trading is putting pressure on providers of market data terminals to open up their data feeds. The fragmentation of markets into new trading platforms has forced many investors to connect to multiple data feeds, ratcheting up their IT costs. By offering a free interface, Bloomberg is hoping to to provide a tool that allows investors to both cut costs and circumvent its rivals’ market access codes and win market share.

“Bloomberg is a fierce competitor to Thomson Reuters, which two months ago announced that Tom Glocer would stand down as chief executive to be succeeded by Jim Smith, a long-time Thomson executive with a mandate to improve its core financial data product, Eikon, and technology and customer service. Burton-Taylor Consulting has estimated that Bloomberg has gained market share on Thomson Reuters in the last four years.”

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