British hedge fund Marshall Wace embraces Bloomberg's pricing data service governed by machine learning.
British hedge fund Marshall Wace is using a real-time pricing data service from Bloomberg that incorporates machine learning models to bolster its systematic credit strategy with new pricing data delivered every 15 seconds across the liquidity spectrum for USD, EUR and GBP credit markets, officials say.
Known as a global liquid alternatives manager, Marshall Wace is using Bloomberg’s IBVAL Front Office service for a multi-asset strategy.
“Bloomberg has been using A.I. for more than 15 years and we are always exploring ways to utilize A.I. to help our clients improve their operational and trading efficiencies,” Eric Isenberg, global head of enterprise data pricing at Bloomberg, tells FTF News. “One example of this is IBVAL, which uses the latest approaches in A.I. to price approximately 45,000 investment grade, high yield credit securities in USD, EUR and GBP as fast as every 15 seconds.”
IBVAL targets users who “need to quickly observe the likely current trading price of a bond. Our buy-side clients value the near real-time speed of IBVAL pricing to actively manage client portfolios, develop credit algos, execute portfolio trades, and to inform trading decisions more broadly,” Isenberg says.
Marshall Wace, headquartered in London with $69 billion in assets, is using the pricing data “for idea generation and pre-trade analysis” especially when “pricing high yield bonds, particularly during pre-market hours,” officials say.
The firm manages “quantitative, systematic and fundamental strategies, specializing predominantly in long/short equity. Our strategies are implemented globally, leveraging proprietary systems and processes,” according to the Marshall Wace website.
In 2015, Marshall Wace expanded its presence in private equity and credit markets with a long-term strategic partnership with private equity firm KKR, whose ownership of Marshall Wace was initially 24.6 percent but has grown to 39.6 percent as of November 2019, officials say.
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