Still looking for ways to derive more revenue from the vast quantities of data it collects every day, Reuters Holdings Plc yesterday launched Reuters Snapshot Price Service, which provides a daily periodic snapshot of share and bond prices to update portfolios via a local phone call from 800 cities worldwide. It has been designed for those who want more than a closing price and less than a real-time price feed, specifically analysts, portfolio managers, unit trust and pension departments and the media. Clients can create an unlimited numbers of portfolios with up to 1,000 shares drawn from over 160,000 instruments covering equities, commodities, futures, options, indicies, bonds, foreign exchange and money rates from markets around the world. The instruments are sourced from the databases of the Reuters Equities and Commodities 2000 Service and Reuter Monitor Money Rates service with information from over 150 exchanges and thousands of clients. The pricing coverage varies by instrument and exchange, a range of data is available including high/low, bid/ask, open, last or mid-price and settlement prices, volume and open interest. Clients can receive data at any time of the day and portfolios can be updated at pre-defined times, either hourly, daily or weekly, but this also varies by instrument and exchange – for example the Tokyo Stock Market allows only closing rates to be accessed. Snapshot has a built-in time-lag of approximately 15 minutes for most markets to avoid exchange fees, the US Futures Market has a 30 minute delay. Clients need a personal computer, a modem and Reuter Network software to access Snapshot via the global Reuternet packet-switching network at the Reuter host computer in Toronto where the prices are held. The information can be delivered in three formats allowing downloading personal computer spreadsheet packages. A basic monthly fee of UKP300 is charged, this includes 100 snapshots and supply of the communications software Reuter Connect and use of Reuternet, the international network. In addition to this users are charged for each instrument accessed, the amount of data and the number of times it is downloaded, depending on the data the cost will be between 0.5 pence and 3 pence per instrument. There is a 25% discount for bulk users. Reuters cannot forecast how many people will sign up for the system but it will be disappointed if its does not reach the 300 mark by this time next year. A keen salesman in Hong Kong jumped the gun and signed the first client on Monday, ahead of launch.
