Big Data, a Big Bang exploding into the business of Finance


Big Data is the new Big Bang. It is a buzzword that has exploded into every discipline that process expansive data sets. Computing, medical sciences, biology, and advertising are adjusting their methodologies to harness the ever expanding processing power that is available. In finance, the data is omnipresent: exchanges generate tick data, news services deliver real-time machine readable newsfeeds, and Internet traffic analysts produce sentiment feeds.

Even the United States Federal Reserve has seemingly jumped on the big data wagon and is producing more data points than ever before. All of this is a great thing.

Big data generates transparency, it allows people to make timely informed decisions, and helps predict the future based on current trends. The challenge, of course, lies in what to do with all this data. Transmission of the data, data storage, and data analysis are just three key areas where many traditional approaches do not apply. And big data finance is becoming a big business. Financial companies of all sizes and stripes are investing into big data technology, acquiring newsfeeds, data analytics, databases, network switches, leasing space in data centers, and hiring consultants to help make sense from the data that surrounds us. The investments further fuel research in the field. And as a new conference devoted to the subject (http://www.bigdatafinanceconference.com) shows, the innovation in big data finance is evolving at a mind-boggling speed, surpassed perhaps only by the speed of growth of the data itself. As financial industry gradually recovers from the crisis, the adoption and demand for further innovation is only going to continue to grow.

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