Waters Wavelength

Shen and Nyela chat about their recent two-part feature on the budding GPU compute market. Then, Nyela gives an overview of what went down at Sibos 2026, held in Miami. https://www.waterstechnology.com/trading-tech/7953251/the-gpu-compute-index-race-begins https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7953259/gpu-compute-derivatives-are-put-to-the-test

To start on a somber note, this Friday will mark the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. WatersTechnology was hosting its first-ever event at Windows on the World at the top of the North Tower. Click here to read our memorial article: https://www.waterstechnology.com/comment/7874671/911-the-colleagues-we-lost-and-the-years-that-followed This week’s guest is Chris Bruner, chief product officer at Tradeweb. (0:00) – Tony vents about a recent PR incident (13:00) – Chris joins the podcast and explains why Tradeweb got into the prediction markets game. [This is Chris’ second time on the show. Here is his previous episode: https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7952471/waters-wavelength-ep-320-tradeweb%E2%80%99s-chris-bruner] (17:00) – Why is it a necessity to incorporate this data onto the Tradeweb platform, rather than the customer going directly to the prediction markets provider? (19:00) – How is this data different than sentiment data coming from, say, Reddit, X, or Facebook

It’s the last week of August. Tony, Reb, and Shen get together to chat about movies, TV series, music, and books. Listeners, be warned: this episode contains profanity.

Tony and Shen go through this story about Nasdaq’s trade surveillance software failing to send alerts. https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7953177/red-alert-how-nasdaqs-smarts-became-surveillance-blind-spot

This week’s guest is David Bholat, director for professional and financial services at Faculty. (0:00) – Shen talks about her recent trip to Vietnam (8:00) – David joins the podcast (10:30) – Pilot purgatory (15:30) – Focus on the integration quality (20:30) – Steps for successful production (25:00) – The right case may not be the sexiest (28:00) – What exactly are agents (35:00) – David’s hope for the future of financial services

It’s just Tony and Shen this week. They discuss Tony’s latest feature about vibe coding. https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7953113/vibe-coding-is-burning-us-out

This week’s guest is Cat Turley, CEO and founder of ExeQution Analytics. She joins the podcast to discuss the gap between investment data and trading alpha. (0:00) – Shen has a cold (5:30) – Cat joins the podcast (9:00) – Challenges in getting context from data (14:30) – Techs vs. traders vs. quants (18:30) – Minimizing day-to-day friction (22:00) – Macro and micro (28:30) – Measuring ROI (34:00) – Putting a process in place (36:00) – AI’s role

Tony catches Shen up on all the stories WatersTechnology published while she was on vacation. Stories mentioned: https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7953074/symphony-introduces-agentic-workflows-to-core-platform https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7953080/factsets-vectorization-service-aims-to-improve-agent-accuracy https://www.waterstechnology.com/regulation/7953083/ai-governance-rules-coming-soon-says-cftc-chair https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7953077/bootcamps-and-peer-pressure-goldman-preps-staff-for-ai-future https://www.waterstechnology.com/data-management/7953000/genai-and-data-quality-converge-at-t-rowe-prices-data-lake-como?ref=header-search https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7953079/defi-and-tradfi-firms-are-borrowing-each-others-benefits https://www.waterstechnology.com/regulation/7953050/hitting-the-great-wall-details-scarce-on-chinas-xinchuang-initiative

This week, Spencer Lee, head of products, Americas, and Julien Alexandre, global head of research at MarketAxess, join the podcast to discuss AI in fixed income trading. https://www.waterstechnology.com/market-access/technology/7950305/waters-wavelength-podcast-fixed-income-execution-innovation?ref=search https://www.marketaxess.com/explore/the-state-of-ai-survey-findings (0:00) – Tony recounts the NFL draft week (8:00) – Spencer and Julien join the podcast (11:30) – How AI is making sense of data coming from different sources (17:30) – Evolution of AI in fixed income (22:00) – Where AI has the most measurable impact (24:30) – How to trade and what to trade (30:00) – Agentic vs algo (33:30) – AI sentiment index

This week, Wei-Shen and Tony talk about a new AI study. (0:00) – Tony rambles on about crazy Uber fares (6:00) – Then, they discuss a recent AI study done by PwC.

This week, Wei-Shen chats with Rebecca Natale, EMEA editor for WatersTechnology, about Reb’s recent trip to the Netherlands, and the latest on the Cusip legal drama. (0:00) – Reb is thrilled to be on this episode. She talks about her little adventure to Amsterdam in the Netherlands (9:30) – Then, they chat discuss the past four years of legal drama with Cusip Global Services, and the difference between use and issuance of Cusip identifiers (14:00) – The latest court case CGS has been hit with https://www.waterstechnology.com/data-management/7952899/where-have-four-years-of-cusip-legal-drama-gone?ref=search https://www.waterstechnology.com/data-management/7952806/plaintiffs-propose-to-represent-all-non-database-cusip-licensees-in-last-7-years?ref=search

This week, Anthony chats with Nyela Graham, senior reporter for WatersTechnology, who subs in for Wei-Shen to talk about the hot topics at FIA Boca. 0:00 – Tony and Nyela have a rant about Chatham House rules. 15:30 – Nyela recaps FIA Boca—everything from prediction markets to tokenization to 24/7 trading to exchange CEOs having a tiff. 36:30 – And of course, no podcast with Nyela and Tony would be complete without a little baseball talk (in this case, the World Baseball Classic).  For more detail into what went down at FIA Boca, this article is in front of our paywall: https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7952984/florida-and-folly-boca-attendees-forecast-the-future-of-market-structure

This week, Brennan Carley, who has spent more than 40 years working in financial technology, joins to discuss the hidden risks and untapped potential of agentic AI in the capital markets. 0:00 – Tony and Wei-Shen discuss boxing, MMA, and why our dreams of becoming professional fighters were dashed. 10:15 – Brennan joins the podcast 13:15 – An examination of AI’s evolution in the capital markets 20:30 – AI isn’t evolving as rapidly as it seems 26:30 – Are the old-guard software providers on Wall Street in trouble? 29:15 – How bank CEOs are looking at AI? 32:15 – How are the data providers looking at AI versus the trading technology business line? 37:45 – Will the fight over data exclusivity continue to ramp up? 43:45 – What are the hidden blind spots for firms of all stripes? 50:45 – A specific recommendation for FactSet and Refinitiv/LSEG Data & Analytics 54:30 – Brennan believes that there’s reason to believe that entry-level job won’t completely disappear; they’ll just change

This week’s guest is Andrew Morgan, president and chief revenue officer at TS Imagine. He talks with Wei-Shen about how fixed income trading behavior is changing. (0:00) – Tony’s side hustle (7:00) – Andrew joins the podcast and gives an overview of his background (13:00) – Changing fixed income trading behaviors (15:30) – Three main ingredients for electronic trading (24:30) – Data issues (31:30) – Equities markets run on agentic AI (34:00) – What hinders further electronification

On September 11, 2001, Katie McGarry Noack had just arrived at the World Trade Center’s Windows on the World. She was attending Waters’ first-ever conference. Of the thousands who lost their lives on that day, Katie was one, along with 70 other delegates who had arrived to catch the morning presentations or settle in before participating in panel discussions later in the day. Patrick McGarry is Katie’s brother. For the 25th anniversary of that fateful day, he wanted to do something special to remember his sister: on March 8th, he will hop on his bicycle in San Diego, California, and begin a 3,000-mile journey across the US, ending in St. Augustine, Florida, on April 20th. The goal of his Pacific-to-Atlantic journey is to raise $100,000 to benefit the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which provides mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families with young children. We hope you listen to his story. If you’d like to donate, you can find all the information you’ll need here: https://www.aride

A little late, but a very Happy New Year from your favorite podcast hosts! This week, Tony and Shen discuss topics they think capital markets firms will focus on this year—AI and agentic AI, quantum computing, and—you guessed it—market data.

This week’s guest is Jason Birmingham, CTO and head of global engineering at Broadridge (0:00) – Tony and Shen reminisce on an amazing snowman they built (7:00) – Jason joins the podcast and explains the “modern CTO mandate” (14:30) – The fundamentals matter (16:00) – A platform strategy (20:30) – Solving the ontology (26:00) – The blueprint (31:00) – Necessary skillsets

This week’s guest is Sophie Lagouanelle, vice president of product for financial crime compliance at LexisNexis Risk Solutions (0:00) – Tony and Shen talk about their Spotify 2025 Wrapped (5:00) – Sophie joins and reflects on the state of financial crime (14:00) – Volume and speed (17:30) – AI and ML’s role (25:30) – Changes within compliance teams (30:00) – Focus areas for regulators (40:30) – Shared memory

This week’s guests are Michele Pitts, managing director and global product head of transaction management, and Marcello Topa, director for global market advocacy, policy, and strategy at Citi Investor Services 0:00 – Reb and Shen talk about the death of rom-com movies 9:30 – Michele and Marcello join the podcast 11:30 – Updates from UK and EU’s taskforces 15:30 – Applicability of lessons from US T+1 19:00 – How tech can help 25:00 – Prevention vs. cure 30:00 – Metrics firms should have 32:30 – T+0 is inevitable

The week of Thanksgiving in the US is one of the slowest news weeks of the year. So Anthony and Nyela Graham (who is subbing in for Wei-Shen) talk about the news media, instead.