Matlab linked to Bloomberg financial info

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jun 5, 2000

Cambridge Control, a MathWorks' company, is introducing a major new software product that substantially enhances The MathWorks' set of software tools for financial professionals.

Cambridge Control, a MathWorks company, is introducing a major new software product that substantially enhances The MathWorks' set of software tools for financial professionals.

The Datafeed Toolbox provides a direct connection between The MathWorks' core product, Matlab, and Bloomberg LP's financial information services.

The first in what is expected to be a series of similar developments, the toolbox provides quantitative researchers and financial engineers with direct access to live, historical and time series data from one of the world's leading providers of financial information.

It thus permits them to use the Matlab environment to develop complex financial and analytic models based on the most up-to-date stock market information.

Ideally suited to financial analysis and modelling in fixed income, portfolio management and risk management applications, the Datafeed Toolbox integrates Matlab's built-in capabilities for program-ming, mathematical and financial functions, data analysis and graphics with data from real-time financial information sources.

Using the toolbox's graphical user interface (GUI), financial professionals can link to Bloomberg's data services in order to import real-time data, request time series and historical data, and locate security ticker symbols from within the Matlab environment.

Once data is imported into Matlab, it can be analysed using other application-specific tools in the Matlab environment, such as the Financial Time Series, GARCH, Neural Network and Statistics Toolboxes.

The GUI also allows users to establish multiple Bloomberg connec-tions and monitor the status and history of each connection.

In announcing its partnership with Bloomberg and the introduction of the Datafeed Toolbox, The MathWorks is responding directly to its customers' need for access to market data so that they can build their own models and analytical tools within the familiar Matlab environment.

The Datafeed Toolbox comes in the wake of The MathWorks' successful introduction of three other application-specific toolboxes for financial engineering in 1999 and exemplifies the Company's broad support of financial research, analysis, and application development.

In common with all of Matlab's companion toolboxes, the Datafeed Toolbox comprises a series of programmable Matlab files that provide users with access to its source code.

This allows users to view, edit and modify the toolbox functions or add their own, thereby extending and customising the environment to suit their individual needs.

The Datafeed Toolbox is one of many Matlab-based products that provide a complete, fully integrated set of tools for financial engineering.

These tools support the entire financial application development process from academic research to quantitative research and prototyping, all the way through to application development and deployment to the end user through legacy systems.

The open, component-based architecture of Matlab enables users to opt specifically for the toolboxes and extensions that they need for their applications.

Pricing for the Datafeed Toolbox starts at £1,085.

It runs on Windows 95,98 and NT and requires Matlab 5.3.1 and Bloomberg on the same PC or workstation.