TECH TUESDAY is a weekly content series covering all aspects of capital markets technology. TECH TUESDAY is produced in collaboration with Nasdaq.
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are among the most powerful long-term growth stories in capital markets. Total net assets in U.S. ETFs soared to $8.1 trillion as of year-end 2023, representing 24% of assets managed by investment companies, and up about eighty-fold from $102 billion in 2002. As of year-end 2023, there was a total of 3,108 ETFs, offered by 218 different firms.
Given the breadth of the market, having the most accurate, comprehensive and timely data is a critical challenge for ETF market participants, which include issuers, buy-side institutions and market makers.
Enter Nasdaq ETF Intel, a web-based interactive analytics platform providing public market data for all U.S.-listed ETFs, with the availability to search by volume, market quality, performance, flows, peer competition and liquidity provider trends. Launched in October 2023, the platform’s unique benefits for users include complimentary data; international, firm-wide access; and open utilization for internal or external content.
Danielle Rutsky, ETF Lead Product Manager at Nasdaq since early 2022, leveraged her previous issuer experience working with ETF launches and liquidity assessments to gain knowledge of what data market participants need most and help build Nasdaq ETF Intel.
“There is a massive amount of trading data that our clients want to know in addition to the data they need for compliance with listings rules,” Rutsky told Traders Magazine.
“As an exchange, of course we need to seamlessly and efficiently deliver data, but we also realized there was a lot more data we could be giving ETF issuers beyond just the basics like how much they are trading and what was the last price traded,” Rutsky continued. “And Nasdaq has a unique ability to deliver this type of robust data via our technology.”
Nasdaq ETF Intel is the first exchange product that provides ETF issuers with a view of the full U.S. ETF market. “It’s about simplifying and streamlining our client’s internal processes to set them up for success,” Rutsky said, adding that a second, updated version of the platform was released in May 2024 and there will be further improvements based on feedback from users.
Importantly, Nasdaq ETF Intel prioritizes data visualization to present industry key performance indicators such as ETF flows and total dollar volume; registered market maker data; and market quality data, which includes metrics such as daily total dollar volume and average spread, the tightest 20 trade days by average spread, and the top 20 trade days by average dollar trade size.
“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from issuers as to the different visuals, and through Amazon QuickSight, we’re able to update these quite easily as feedback comes in,” Rutsky said.
One unique benefit of Nasdaq ETF Intel: it’s complimentary. “It’s very competitive to launch an ETF these days, and issuers that have a large ETF team don’t want to spend money on every different tool and product on top of that,” Rutsky said. “Obviously this isn’t going to replace a Bloomberg terminal, but outside of that real-time data aspect, there was definitely a gap in what the market was providing.”
Nasdaq ETF Intel is in its early innings as a product. “We are working on synthesizing feedback from the industry as to what they want to see next,” Rutsky said. “We’re looking into global data, we’re looking into trade monitoring and quote monitoring, and we’re looking into real-time data as well as even faster ways to export, such as API capabilities.
Added Rutsky: “All of that is in the realm of possibility. We’re really excited to see where this goes.”
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