Delayed market data dilemmas: Simplifying compliance and cost

Acquiring and managing delayed market data can be complex and costly. Firms often face data quality issues and the burden of complying with changing exchange rules. Historically, many market data teams have managed the acquisition and deployment of this data in-house. However, data quality can be a significant issue, and compliance with changing rules around the timing and use of the data can be costly to resource. More firms are therefore seeking solutions which are not only cost-effective but help them to easily manage delay rules and permission requirements, whilst offering the ability to scale flexibly.

Delayed market data is financial instrument trade information released with a time delay – usually of 10-30 minutes – after an actual transaction. A delayed market data feed often include additional information about security prices, bid and ask prices, trading volumes and related data fields. Delayed market data is available for equities, commodities, currencies, derivatives, fixed income and more. 

Usually sources, such as exchanges, that originate this data will have specific policies about how long data must be delayed for. They will also have different cost structures for delayed data. Both timing and cost policies vary over time, which is burdensome for financial firms that capture and deploy market data from these sources. 

There is a wide range of potential use cases for delayed market data within financial services firms today, including:

• Compliance and reporting: Meeting regulatory requirements and supporting risk oversight without relying on live data
• Analytics and research: Studying historical trends and market behaviour to inform decision-making
• Software development and testing: Building and validating applications in a controlled environment without incurring real-time data costs
• Simulation and strategy testing: Backtesting trading strategies and assessing performance under different market conditions
• Portfolio management: Reviewing prices and valuations across a broad set of instruments
• Sales and client support: Providing indicative pricing for client queries without the expense of real-time feeds
• Training, learning and development: Supporting model development and professional learning with realistic market scenarios

Although firms use delayed data across these and other use cases, often they find that sourcing and managing the data themselves can be problematic. 

A March 2023 UK Financial Conduct Authority report found that free delayed market data from sources such as exchanges often suffers from quality issues. The report states that about a third of the users reported challenges with the usability of the data, including inconsistency in data formats and fields, and data errors. These quality challenges mean that firms must incur costs on cleaning and maintaining this data when it is sourced directly from exchanges. 

In addition, the exchanges and other sources that publish delayed market data have a range of policies that must be complied with, including the timing of the delay. Firms need to have administrative resources in place to identify and implement policy changes, which can be expensive. 

Finally, some methods of harvesting free delayed data means that the data is not exchange-compliant, which can lead to decision-making errors.

Introducing LSEG Real-Time – Delayed Optimized: a cloud-based feed delivering high-quality, exchange-compliant delayed prices. Each price release is postponed according to the publication policy of the individual content source – ensuring compliance without manual rule management or in-house infrastructure. And because LSEG automatically updates the feed to reflect policy changes, it operates closely to a managed service – removing compliance risk and operational burden. Built on the proven Real-Time – Optimized platform, it simplifies operations, reduces costs, and accelerates time to market.

• Compliance made simple: We automatically update the feed to reflect policy changes, eliminating compliance risk. 
• Cost efficiency: No live exchange fees and no need for infrastructure investment. 
• Rapid time to market: Easy integration with WebSocket and Real-Time SDKs using the same APIs as Real-Time – Optimized. 
• Cloud-native delivery: Connect seamlessly via AWS PrivateLink, internet, or Delivery Direct. 
• Scalable pricing: Flexible watchlist-based tiers to adapt to changing needs.

Real-Time – Delayed Optimized delivers the same extensive coverage as Real-Time – Optimized – over 90 million instruments, including exclusive content sets – except where delayed publication is restricted by source policy. Data is cleaned, normalised and aligned to the LSEG data model, eliminating the need for in-house maintenance and ensuring seamless integration with other LSEG datasets like machine-readable news and reference data. 

Running natively in AWS, customers can easily connect from any cloud service provider, leveraging the same API technology as Real-Time – Optimized, enabling rapid deployment across the front, middle and back offices. Plus, you’ll benefit from LSEG‘s 24/7 global support and expert consulting teams, guiding you through every step of onboarding and beyond.