A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(October 2022) |
Kx Systems | |
Company type | Private |
Industry | Software & Tech Services |
Founded | 1993Palo Alto, California | in
Founders |
|
Headquarters | , United States |
Number of locations | 14 offices [1] (2018) |
Area served | |
Key people | |
Products | |
Parent | FD Technologies plc |
Website | kx |
KX is a privately owned software company that sells a time series database kdb+, used for financial modeling and data analysis, and its associated proprietary programming language q. [6] [7]
It was founded in 1993 by Janet Lustgarten and Arthur Whitney, [8] the developer of the K programming language. In 2014, First Derivatives increased their ownership interest to 65 percent; in 2018, the company (now FD Technologies plc) announced plans to buy out the remaining shares of KX. [9] KX has offices in New York City, London, England, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. [1] [10]
In 1993, Whitney and Lustgarten joined to commercialize the k programming platform Whitney had created after building the A+ language and other trading systems at Morgan Stanley. [7] [11] The purpose of the software was to access and explore large data volumes in financial services computer systems. [12] Initially, Kx Systems had an exclusive contract with Swiss global financial services firm UBS to provide them with the K language. In 1998, the contract with UBS expired and the firm launched the kdb+ database. As part of kdb+, Whitney developed a new language named q that operated with k and uses English keywords. [13]
In 1999, the company reached a marketing agreement with a Northern Ireland based firm, First Derivatives.; [14] it opened an office in Manhattan in 2002, [15] Germany and Japan in 2003, [16] and Hong Kong in 2009. [17] In 2014, First Derivatives purchased a 65 percent share of Kx Systems. [18] Kx became a technology supplier to NASA's Frontier Development Lab. [19] In July 2018, FD Technologies bought all remaining shares in KX Systems that it did not already hold; [20] Whitney and Lustgarten then went on to found Shakti. [21] [22]
The economy of Hong Kong is a highly developed free-market economy. It is characterised by low taxation, almost free port trade and a well-established international financial market. Its currency, called the Hong Kong dollar, is legally issued by three major international commercial banks, and is pegged to the US dollar. Interest rates are determined by the individual banks in Hong Kong to ensure that they are market driven. There is no officially recognised central banking system, although the Hong Kong Monetary Authority functions as a financial regulatory authority.
MUMPS, or M, is an imperative, high-level programming language with an integrated transaction processing key–value database. It was originally developed at Massachusetts General Hospital for managing patient medical records and hospital laboratory information systems.
The Octopus card is a reusable contactless stored value smart card for making electronic payments in online or offline systems in Hong Kong. Launched in September 1997 to collect fares for the territory's mass transit system, it has grown into a widely used system for transport and other retail transactions in Hong Kong. It is also used for purposes such as recording school attendance and permitting building access. The cards are used by 98 percent of the population of Hong Kong aged 15 to 64 and the system handles more than 15 million transactions, worth over HK$220 million, every day.
Joseph Yam Chi-kwong, GBM, GBS, CBE, JP is a Hong Kong statistician, economist and civil servant. He was the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong's de facto central bank, holding the position for 16 years. In 2011 Yam was elected to a member of the board of directors of the Swiss Bank UBS AG. In 2014, following UBS AG's restructuring, he was appointed to the board of directors of the UBS Group AG and served in the position till May 2017. He has been a member of the Corporate Culture and Responsibility Committee and the Risk Committee of the UBS Group AG since 2011 and a non-official member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong since 2017.
K is a proprietary array processing programming language developed by Arthur Whitney and commercialized by Kx Systems. The language serves as the foundation for kdb+, an in-memory, column-based database, and other related financial products. The language, originally developed in 1993, is a variant of APL and contains elements of Scheme. Advocates of the language emphasize its speed, facility in handling arrays, and expressive syntax.
In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability. The name "In-Q-Tel" is an intentional reference to Q, the fictional inventor who supplies technology to James Bond.
Business Wire is an American company that disseminates full-text press releases from thousands of companies and organizations worldwide to news media, financial markets, disclosure systems, investors, information web sites, databases, bloggers, social networks and other audiences. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.
Arthur Whitney is a Canadian computer scientist most notable for developing three programming languages inspired by APL: A+, k, and q, and for co-founding the U.S. companies Kx Systems and Shakti Software.
David A. Thomas, sometimes known as "Big" Dave Thomas is a software developer, researcher and entrepreneur. He was founder and CEO of Object Technology International, which created the products that became IBM VisualAge and eventually Eclipse.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited operates a range of equity, commodity, fixed income and currency markets through its wholly owned subsidiaries The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (SEHK), Hong Kong Futures Exchange Limited (HKFE) and London Metal Exchange (LME).
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) is an American multinational financial services company formed in 2000 that operates global financial exchanges and clearing houses and provides mortgage technology, data and listing services. Listed on the Fortune 500, S&P 500, and Russell 1000, the company owns exchanges for financial and commodity markets, and operates 12 regulated exchanges and marketplaces. This includes ICE futures exchanges in the United States, Canada, and Europe; the Liffe futures exchanges in Europe; the New York Stock Exchange; equity options exchanges; and OTC energy, credit, and equity markets.
Chan Ka-keung Ceajer, also referred to as KC Chan, is a Hong Kong politician and economist who previously served as the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury. He is also the ex officio chairman of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, and an ex officio member of the Hong Kong International Theme Parks board of directors. Chan left the government and rejoined the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2017. He is currently the chairman of WeLab Bank, a digital bank in Hong Kong.
Q is a programming language for array processing, developed by Arthur Whitney. It is proprietary software, commercialized by Kx Systems. Q serves as the query language for kdb+, a disk based and in-memory, column-based database. Kdb+ is based on the language k, a terse variant of the language APL. Q is a thin wrapper around k, providing a more readable, English-like interface. One of the use cases is financial time series analysis, as one could do inexact time matches. An example is to match the a bid and the ask before that. Both timestamps slightly differ and are matched anyway.
Chi-Won Yoon is a South Korean financier and executive. Formerly president of UBS Group Asia Pacific, he stepped down in 2016 after nearly seven years in the position to take a sabbatical.
BTG Pactual is a Brazilian financial company that operates in the markets of investment banking, wealth management, asset management, corporate lending and sales and trading. It offers advisory services in mergers and acquisitions, wealth planning, loans and financings, as well as investment solutions and market analyses. It is the sixth largest banking institution in Brazil, the eleventh largest in Latin America, and the largest investment bank in Latin America and the Caribbean.
UBS Group AG is a multinational investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered simultaneously in Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres as the largest Swiss banking institution and the largest private bank in the world. UBS investment bankers and private bankers are known for their strict bank–client confidentiality and culture of banking secrecy. Because of the bank's large positions in the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific markets, the Financial Stability Board considers it a global systemically important bank.
eXtremeDB is a high-performance, low-latency, ACID-compliant embedded database management system using an in-memory database system (IMDS) architecture and designed to be linked into C/C++ based programs. It runs on Windows, Linux, and other real-time and embedded operating systems.
kdb+ is a column-based relational time series database (TSDB) with in-memory (IMDB) abilities, developed and marketed by KX. The database is commonly used in high-frequency trading (HFT) to store, analyze, process, and retrieve large data sets at high speed. kdb+ has the ability to handle billions of records and analyzes data within a database. The database is available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions for several operating systems. Financial institutions use kdb+ to analyze time series data such as stock or commodity exchange data. The database has also been used for other time-sensitive data applications including commodity markets such as energy trading, telecommunications, sensor data, log data, machine and computer network usage monitoring along with real time analytics in Formula One racing.
Carsten Kengeter is the former CEO of Deutsche Börse. He was the chief executive officer and Head of the management board of Deutsche Börse AG from June 1, 2015, to Jan 1, 2018.
Futu Holdings Limited ("Futu") is a financial technology company offering digital financial services across global markets. Futu and its subsidiaries operate in seven key regions, including Hong Kong, the United States, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Canada, Malaysia. It provides a range of investment services and holds over 100 licenses and qualifications across various jurisdictions. Futu also owns Futu Securities International Limited, which is a licensed corporation recognized by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission.