Sirca’s Chris Mendes at the British Consulate

Chris Mendes, CTO of Sirca Limited, was invited to the British Consulate recently to join a select group of Australian IT professionals for afternoon tea with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Later that day, Sir Tim sat on a panel with Sirca’s Paul McCarthy.

Sir Tim spoke of his views about the importance of Open Data for government and his recent efforts in the UK and the USA. Chris and Sir Tim discussed the importance of trying to establish open standards for financial data.

Chris Mendes (Left) meets with Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Sirca’s Paul McCarthy Featured On Distinguished Panel

Sirca’s very own Paul McCarthy will be on stage this evening with Sir Tim Berners-Lee to discuss the future of the Internet as part of the City of Sydney’s “City Talks” program at Sydney Town Hall.

Other panelists include Alan Noble (Google), Hael Kobiashi (Animal Logic, UTS), and Rachel Botsman (Author of Collaborative Consumption) and is being moderated by the ABC’s Adam Spencer.

Tickets were snapped up fast for this event, however it will be streamed live at 6:30PM AESDT on the City Talks website.

Amazon Web Services announces partnership with Sirca

Amazon Web Services (AWS) have recently announced Sirca as a member of the AWS Partner Network. Sirca, one of Australia’s most experienced players in the Big Data and Data Science sector, was an early adopter of AWS technology. Sirca will be soon hosting services on the new AWS Sydney Region cloud servers to take advantage of their dynamic resource allocations and to open the door for greater interaction and development with the wider technology community.

Sirca intends to partner with a number of organisations in 2013 to deliver Big Data solutions on AWS, both in Australia and internationally.

2012 AFBC Sirca Research Prize Winner Announced

Congratulations to Terrance C. Fung of City University Hong Kong whose paper, Media and Market Quality, has been judged as the winner of the Sirca Research Prize at the 2012 Australian Finance and Banking Conference in Sydney. Terrance collects AU$2500 for his efforts. Eligible papers for this award had to use Sirca Data (this includes ASX intraday tick data and regulatory disclosures, and Thomson Reuters Tick History and Reuters News).  

We’ve Moved!

Sirca has finally made it’s much anticipated move to The Rocks in Sydney. If you are in Sydney come and say hello! Our new address is: Sirca Ltd. Level 4, 55 Harrington St The Rocks, NSW 2000

Sirca Annual Survey Winner

Sirca would like to thank everyone who completed our annual survey recently, the response was our largest to date and very insightful. We are pleased to announce that Vamsi Velampati from UNSW has won the draw for an iPad Mini. Congratulations Vamsi we hope you enjoy it!

Corporate Governance Database now available on the Member Portal

The Corporate Governance Database is now available via the Sirca Member Portal.

The latest edition contains Corporate Governance information for ASX listed companies with balance sheet dates to June 2011. Data collection is ongoing so information for companies with later balance sheet dates will appear in subsequent updates.

Sirca would like to thank the members who assisted with the beta testing of the interface and dataset. Users are invited to enhance this new resource either by contributing new data or by helping to improve existing records.

Members are advised to pay close attention to the product documentation located via the Help button. If anyone requires assistance please be sure to lodge your enquiry via the Helpdesk function in the Member Portal.

Sirca News and Event Studies Workshop – Melbourne

Sirca invites members to attend a News and Event Studies Workshop in Melbourne on November 12th to coincide with the release of Thomson Reuters News Analytics sentiment scores to our members. Sirca’s senior market data analyst, Dr. Calum Robertson, will be leading the workshop and covering topics such as:

  • Overview of the content in Reuters Global News and Thomson Reuters News Analytics
  • Market Efficiency Theory: Numerical and Textual Information
  • Research into the Effect of News on the Efficiency of Financial Markets
  • The Applications and Limitations of Sentiment Scores in research and trading

If you are interested in attending please RSVP by Monday 5th of November 2012. Space is limited!

What: Sirca News and Event Studies Workshop.
When: Monday 12th November 2012 at 11am.
Where: Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Room H1.25.

Call For Papers – Inaugural Sirca Young Researcher Workshop

In May 2012 Sirca announced a series of initiatives that provide additional member benefits. These initiatives are all directed at enhancing research training and research support for our members. They are being overseen by a newly created Membership Research Committee (MRC) and the appointment of Professor Terry Walter as Sirca’s Chief Research Officer. One such initiative is a Young Researcher Workshop, held in Sydney on the 30th of November 2012. Young researchers working or studying in member universities will be invited to travel to Sydney (with travel and accommodation costs being met by Sirca) to present their current finance or accounting research, and to receive expert commentary on the research from a member of the MRC. This workshop will be held twice per year and five papers will be presented at each workshop. We invite young researchers to submit a current research paper here for possible inclusion in the inaugural workshop. Submitted papers should be sufficiently advanced to benefit from feedback and suggestions from a seminar presentation. The deadline for submission is 14 September 2012. Notification of the five papers to be included will be made by 31 October 2012, at which time we will also advise the nominated MRC referee who will discuss the paper at the workshop. To qualify for inclusion at least one of the authors of the submitted paper must be a young researcher. We define a young researcher to be a person currently engaged in PhD research or one whose PhD thesis was completed less than five years ago.