Overview
A leading quantitative hedge fund operating a systematic, model-driven global equity strategy implemented Smart Data’s Trade Indicator Service to replace a manual, web-scraped approach to managing short-sell eligibility data across key APAC and EMEA exchanges.
Challenge
The fund had been manually web-scraping short-sell eligibility lists directly from exchange websites and managing eligibility updates in-house, a process that introduced operational risk, data latency, and significant resource overhead. As the fund expanded its strategy into South Korean equities, it encountered a critical regulatory barrier: the Korea Exchange requires a formal data licence for firms accessing its Short-Sell Eligibility and Overheated Stock lists. Without a compliant, managed data source, the fund faced both licensing exposure and the inability to scale its short-selling activity in one of Asia’s most actively regulated equity markets.
Solution
The fund implemented Smart Data’s Trade Indicator Service, a fully managed data service sourcing short-sell eligibility, temporary ban notices, and overheated stock indicators direct from exchanges across South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Turkey, and China. Delivered as a pre-market, start-of-day service via SFTP, the solution provides exchange-validated data cross-referenced against the fund’s preferred identifiers — ISIN, SEDOL, RIC, and Bloomberg IDs, ready for direct ingestion into its compliance and control room infrastructure ahead of market open.
Benefits
The fund eliminated its dependency on manual web-scraping, replacing it with a fully managed, exchange-sourced data service that operates with the timeliness and accuracy required for systematic trading. Smartstream’s coverage resolved the fund’s South Korean licensing exposure while simultaneously extending its eligibility data across 17 countries and 25 exchanges, providing a scalable foundation for further geographic expansion. The fund’s commitment to the service reflects its confidence in Smartstream’s data quality, APAC and emerging market coverage, and the operational reliability of its managed service model.
