Supercharging research with general-purpose programming languages

Insights

Every once in a while there comes a new idea, or a repackaged old one, in sync with a few coincidences in the environment. A change in regulation, adoption of new technology and a nudge, and things change. The resulting ‘snowball effect’ is the adoption of general-purpose programming languages (GPPLs) in finance. This paper talks about this current trend, the factors driving it, and the reactions of the firms affected.

Key Takeaways

• Why the trend – factors pushing adoption of GPPLs and why the current methods of data analysis have reached their limits.
• The environment – changes in business models due to regulation, explosive growth of data, the
changing nature of the data to be analyzed (sentiment and images), and asset managers demanding more ‘bespoke’ research.
• The power of GPPLs – analyzing data and automating tasks enable an analyst to leverage ‘economies
of scale’ in analyzing alternative data.
• What firms are doing – alleviating employees’ fears of becoming digitally illiterate, through mandatory
coding sessions, using GPPLs to offer more tailored insights.

Author

Devin Kandage

Senior Associate, Specialised Solutions

Devin Kandage is a senior associate within the Specialised Solutions team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has over three years of experience in quantitative research, working with a diverse group of clients, spearheading process automation, supporting a benchmark index provider by conducting research on emerging market bond liquidity, supporting investment research through investment and technical analyses in addition to several other ad-hoc projects that include data cleaning, web scraping and training incoming quants analysts. He has a first class degree in Economics and Finance from the University of London. He is also a CFA charterholder.

Mind the (digital talent) gap: Supercharging research with general-purpose programming languages