Market data boom part 2 - more numbers

Following on from Chris Pickle's response to the recent TowerGroup study on regulation-driven market data volume growth, it was interesting to note Datamonitor's similar report being published this week.

It refers to market data volumes doubling annually (which is something that is apparently happening already without MiFID and Reg NMS). And it says that total front office market data infrastructure spend across European and US buy side and sell side firms will increase by 13.52% from $2.1 billion today to $2.384 billion "by 2009" (or end of 2008, if you prefer).

If Chris' and Tower's regulation-driven volume growth predictions are on the right track (Chris says 400% by end 2008, and Tower says 900% by the start of 2010) this doesn't actually seem like a huge increase in IT spending - especially considering the strain that the volumes and other regulatory requirements will put on existing infrastructure.