Case Study: Quantitative Hedge Fund Reduces Operational Risk and Reclaims Weeks of Developer Time with TradingHours.com
Published 10 months ago by Alan Reed
Overview
A quantitative hedge fund with offices in Chicago, New York, and London began using TradingHours.com in 2023 to support its automated post-trade systems and has found the solution to be a strong fit for their needs. Previously, the team maintained market holiday and settlement data manually. It was an "arduous and painful" process that was prone to errors and consumed weeks of developer time.
By switching to TradingHours.com's automated calendar feed, the firm eliminated manual workflows, reduced operational risk, and reclaimed weeks of valuable engineering capacity.
The Challenge: Hidden Costs of Manual Data Collection
Before adopting TradingHours.com, the firm relied on manually collecting holiday and settlement data from dozens of exchange websites, clearing houses, and government websites. This approach was time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to scale.
Mistakes in dates frequently caused breaks in allocation files and delays with brokers, leading to recurring fire drills across multiple teams. Developers were pulled away from their core work to monitor and maintain fragile systems, placing an ongoing mental burden on the team.
The in-house solution also lacked the necessary detail, such as granularity beyond operating MIC, making it harder to support global trading teams across the US, Europe, and Asia with confidence.
The Solution: Automating Calendar Management with TradingHours.com
The firm replaced its manual process with TradingHours.com's automated calendar feed, gaining a reliable and scalable solution that now supports day-to-day operations across its US, European, and Asian trading teams.
Comprehensive Coverage
The data includes trading holidays, settlement holidays, early closes, detailed trading phases for both regular and irregular schedules, and precise coverage within and across MICs, providing the accuracy needed to support complex post-trade workflows.
Simple Integration
Well-structured flat files and clear schemas made it easy to incorporate the data into existing Python and SQL-based tooling. The feed was integrated into daily data pipelines with minimal effort.
Responsive Support
The technical team received fast, knowledgeable support from people familiar with the data. This helped them replace hardcoded workarounds with clean, maintainable solutions.
Built for Change
The system updates seamlessly and continues to support the firm's evolving requirements, including new use cases and expansion into additional markets.
"TradingHours ticked the box for all of our requirements and continues to. It's such a great working relationship. [...] I would recommend TradingHours.com to anyone."
— Head of Data Sourcing
The Results: Time Savings and Operational Stability
By adopting TradingHours.com, the firm eliminated a manual process that previously consumed weeks of developer time each year. Inaccuracies that led to last-minute fire drills have been eliminated. With zero ongoing maintenance required after setup, the team can now focus on higher-value work instead of chasing calendar issues. The improved reliability has also strengthened relationships with brokers by reducing settlement discrepancies and the need for file rework.
"It's like PTSD thinking about the old way we had to do it."
— Senior Software Engineer
Breakdown: Before and After TradingHours
| Capability | Before TradingHours.com | After TradingHours.com |
|---|---|---|
| Data Collection | Manual, "arduous and painful" | ✅ Fully automated |
| Time Investment | 2-3 weeks annually + ad hoc fixes | ✅ Zero time after setup |
| Data Accuracy | Inconsistent and lacking granularity | ✅ Complete and reliable |
| Operational Impact | Frequent distractions, continuous mental burden | ✅ Quiet, stable, and hands-off |
About TradingHours.com
TradingHours.com provides accurate, well-structured market hours and holiday data used by funds, market makers, and service providers around the world. With developer-friendly tools and responsive support, our data helps teams automate internal processes, reduce operational risk, and eliminate the need for manual calendar maintenance.
Learn more at tradinghours.com/data.
