Mr. Mike Powell reports

THOMSON REUTERS EXTENDS LOW-FOOTPRINT, HIGH-PERFORMANCE DIRECT FEED SERVICE TO DERIVATIVES EXCHANGES; CUSTOMERS CAN NOW ACCESS KEY OPTIONS DATA IN A STANDARDIZED, FAMILIAR AND FLEXIBLE FORMAT VIA ELEKTRON DIRECT FEED WHILST REDUCING COSTLY SERVER FOOTPRINT

Thomson Reuters Corp. has expanded its Elektron Direct Feed service to include the Options Price Reporting Authority (OPRA). This provides customers with high-performance access to real-time options data with a low hardware footprint.

Financial services firms are increasing their investment in low-latency feeds, as speed is becoming less of a differentiator and more of a core component of market data infrastructure. This can create a challenge, however, as many are at the same time looking to reduce their total cost of ownership. Feeds from OPRA in particular can present server capacity -- and therefore investment -- challenges, owing to the amount of data they carry.

Elektron Direct Feed was launched by Thomson Reuters in August, 2014, to help address this challenge. As a hardware/software hybrid, based on FPGA (field-programmable gate array) technology, it can run multiple feeds on a single server whilst providing a reliable, deterministic and configurable feed. Elektron Direct Feed delivers the content its users require whilst also accommodating current and future update rates, all the while minimizing costly server footprint expansion.

"This extension of our direct feed service to cover key U.S. options data is part of our ongoing process to provide customers with the data they need, in the latency profile and delivery mechanism that suits them," said Mike Powell, managing director for enterprise capabilities, financial and risk, at Thomson Reuters. "As market participants continue to keep a tight focus on cost whilst seeking the flexibility to go after new opportunities, we will maintain our own focus on finding new solutions to our clients' market data challenges."