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NovaSparks Feed Handlers now Optimized for TSE Arrowhead 4.0

The Leading FPGA-powered market data company announces a successful migration to Arrowhead 4.0, demonstrating its strength with FPGA-powered feed handlers

NEW YORK, LONDON, PARIS, TOKYO – November 27, 2024 –

NovaSparks, the leading field programmable gate array (FPGA) market data company, today announced the successful introduction of its FPGA feed handlers to support the new Arrowhead 4.0 feed on Tokyo Stock Exchange’s (TSE), one of the most strategic and competitive markets in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. NovaSparks continues to enhance its coverage in APAC markets by reducing the latencies of its feed handlers on multiple APAC exchanges, and by developing market-specific features such as Itayose for TSE—a Japanese auction method used to set prices and facilitate the reopening of trading floors. This achievement underscores NovaSparks’ ability to support advanced market technology and its ongoing commitment to the APAC financial sector.

The Arrowhead 4.0 migration, a significant move by TSE, shifts from Market by Level (MBL) to Market by Order (MBO), providing traders with unparalleled market data granularity. Unlike MBL, where quotes are aggregated, MBO publishes each individual buy and sell order, offering traders a detailed view of market activity. This transition allows market participants to leverage deeper insights and execute more strategic trading decisions.

“Increasing the transparency and granularity of market data has been pivotal for enhancing trading strategies and market resilience,” said Luc Burgun, chief executive officer and president of NovaSparks. “With the shift from Market by Level to Market by Order, traders now have a deeper view of individual orders, enabling optimized order placement and advanced algorithmic trading. Our FPGA solutions were instrumental in processing the surge in data volume seamlessly, reinforcing market stability and performance. This transition exemplifies our commitment to equipping financial institutions with the technology needed to stay competitive and compliant during high frequency trading.”

“Arrowhead 4.0 was a very important market data feed for our company, and using NovaSparks enabled us to significantly reduce the complexity of switching to the MBO format. We achieved our goal of not losing any packet while providing consistent auction prices since the first days of trading,” said one of NovaTick’s customers who successfully moved his brokerage trading infrastructure to TSE Arrowhead 4.0.

The Power of FPGA Technology

The MBO format significantly increases data volume—an estimated additional 3 000+ messages per second—and demands that feed handlers build comprehensive order books, a task not required under MBL. While software-based solutions may need up to three times more memory and double the computing power to process this influx, FPGA technology excels in handling such high data loads efficiently, maintaining high-performance with the speed and determinism that only FPGAs can bring.

About NovaSparks

NovaSparks is the leader in FPGA-based high performance and ultra-low latency trading solutions for financial markets. NovaTick , its flagship Ticker Plant product, supports 75 feeds across the major Equities, Futures and Options trading venues in North America, Europe and Asia. It is packaged in scalable ‘easy-to-deploy’ appliances or in ‘tightly coupled’ PCIe cards.

NovaSparks scalable and deterministic feed handlers deliver normalized market data, including order book building and multi-feed consolidation with sub microsecond processing latency, even during market peaks period. Deterministic performance is extended to the whole trading cycle, whether the trading algorithms are implemented in software or in hardware. NovaTick™ also includes advanced built-in functions to support and optimize the use of wireless infrastructures.

The company is headquartered in Paris (France), New York City (USA) and has offices in London (UK), Nantes (France), Athens (Greece) and Bangkok (Thailand).

For more information, please contact Barbara Rizzatti at 971-998-9404 or marketing@novasparks.com.

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