Customised Data Research for Capital Markets: Giving Financial Data Products the Competitive Edge
Published on: 22 Aug 2025
Last updated: 22 Aug 2025
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Every successful financial data product has one thing in common: a foundation of fresh and accurate data. For data product managers working in the financial services sector, the task of keeping products updated with relevant, reliable, and timely insights is a daily challenge. The capital markets, where securities are created, issued, and traded, provide a vast and dynamic flow of data that must be captured continuously to keep information products competitive.
Capital markets are broadly divided into two main categories: the primary market, where new securities are first issued, and the secondary market, where existing securities are traded among investors. Both markets play a crucial role in economic growth and wealth creation. However, the vast amount of information involved, combined with constant developments across industries, geographies, and asset classes, makes data research increasingly complex.
This is exactly where Ascentrik Research delivers unmatched value. Instead of depending on generic syndicated datasets, we specialise in customised secondary data research, sourcing and building hard-to-find, niche datasets that ensure your financial data product stands out in a crowded market.
In this article, we’ll explore the unique data challenges and opportunities within capital markets, and how Ascentrik’s tailored research services can help product managers fuel products with the differentiated, compliant, and reliable data their users demand.
Understanding Capital Markets and Their Data Needs
Public and Private Markets:
Capital markets are broad markets where long-term debt and equity securities are bought and sold. These markets include both public and private components. Capital markets facilitate the raising of capital for governments, companies, and other organizations, and include:
Public capital markets: Where stocks and bonds are traded on public exchanges accessible to all investors, with high transparency and regulation (e.g., NYSE, bond markets).
Private capital markets: Where securities are sold or traded privately, usually to a select group of investors (such as private equity, venture capital, or private placements); these are less regulated and less liquid than public markets.
Challenges in Data Availability- Complex, Fragmented, and Niche Data in Private Markets
By design, public markets are structured to ensure transparency. This creates a wealth of readily available information, from quarterly earnings and filings to analyst reports, financial news, and real-time trading data.
The real challenge for financial data products lies in the private markets, which encompass private equity, venture capital, real estate, hedge funds, and other alternative investments. Unlike public companies, private firms are under no obligation to disclose their financials, operational data, or strategic decisions to the public. This lack of regulatory oversight and limited transparency creates multiple challenges for data collection, like incomplete reporting, fragmented sources and data inconsistency.
Primary and Secondary Markets:
Primary Market: New Issues, IPOs, and Corporate Fundraising
The primary market is where securities such as stocks, bonds, and other instruments are issued for the first time. Companies, governments, and institutions raise capital by offering new securities directly to investors. The most visible example of this process is the Initial Public Offering (IPO), but the primary market also includes bond issuance, private placements, and rights offerings.
For data product managers, capturing primary market data means monitoring events such as:
IPO pipelines and filings
Pricing of new issues
Underwriter and syndicate details
Issuer financials and growth metrics
Regulatory filings and approvals
The challenge is that this data is dispersed across regulatory authorities, exchanges, press releases, and underwriter disclosures. Many details, particularly relating to smaller and cross-border issuances require in-depth sourcing that goes beyond mainstream financial news.
Secondary Market: Trading, Liquidity, and Investor Behavior
Once securities are issued, they enter the secondary market, where investors buy and sell these instruments among themselves. This is the arena of day-to-day trading activity—capturing price movements, trading volumes, and liquidity trends.
Secondary market data provides insights into investor behavior, market sentiment, and asset performance. For product managers, this means constant tracking of:
Trading volumes, price fluctuations, and yield movements
Exchange-specific listings and reporting
Credit ratings, market risk factors, and liquidity metrics
Analyst coverage, sectoral performance, and key macroeconomic drivers
While data on large exchanges is widely covered, niche segments, smaller exchanges, regional issuances, and bespoke instruments often fall outside the coverage of syndicated datasets. This creates a blind spot for products that aim to offer comprehensive insights, unless supported by custom research.
Challenges in Capital Markets Data Research
The capital markets are vast, fast-moving, and global. For data product managers, the challenges aren’t limited to sheer data volume, they include fragmentation, availability, and quality control. Some of the most pressing issues include:
Fragmented sources: Information spans regulatory filings, exchange disclosures, underwriter reports, and financial media often inconsistent across jurisdictions.
Time sensitivity: Market-moving information must be integrated quickly, or data risks becoming stale.
Niche coverage gaps: Data on emerging markets, mid-cap issuers, specialized bonds, or regional exchanges is often incomplete.
Regulation and compliance: Ensuring datasets remain compliant with diverse global data privacy frameworks is critical.
Verification: With high stakes in capital allocation, data accuracy is non-negotiable, yet automated scraping techniques often miss context and nuance.
These challenges can overwhelm in-house research or analytics teams, especially when scaling operations. This is why financial product leaders increasingly turn to outsourced secondary research partners like Ascentrik.
How Ascentrik Strengthens Capital Markets Data Research
Unlike traditional data vendors who deliver broad syndicated feeds, Ascentrik focuses on customised, targeted research that aligns with the unique demands of your financial product. Here’s how our services provide an edge:
1. Fresh, Accurate Datasets
We specialise in building datasets from the ground up, ensuring every record is timely and directly relevant. Whether it’s tracking IPO launches or monitoring secondary market liquidity in thinly traded securities, our research captures fresh insights your users can act on immediately.
2. Coverage of Hard-to-Find Data
From regional bond issues to mid-market IPOs that escape mainstream attention, our researchers excel at sourcing niche and difficult-to-locate capital market data that adds real value to your product’s differentiation.
3. Regulatory Compliance and Data Integrity
Global data compliance frameworks are complex, and breaches can carry heavy penalties. Our research methods are fully compliant, ensuring your datasets remain safe, ethical, and aligned with regulations.
4. Pay-for-Value Assurance
Our promise: you pay only for verified and accurate records. That means no costs wasted on stale, irrelevant, or duplicate entries, a model that optimises your research budget while ensuring reliability.
5. Cost-Effective Outsourcing with Scale
Maintaining a large in-house research department is resource-intensive. By partnering with Ascentrik, product managers can scale their datasets cost-effectively without the overhead of recruitment, training, or retention. Our team works as an extension of your own.
6. A True Extension of Your Product Strategy
We don’t operate as just a supplier; we act as partners invested in your product’s success. We collaborate closely with your team to tailor research goals, methodologies, and deliverables, ensuring that your capital markets coverage is always ahead of user expectations.
Why Capital Market Data Matters More Than Ever
In a world of growing financial literacy, democratized investing platforms, and increasing institutional participation, capital markets data is no longer optional—it is essential. Data product users expect timely access to IPOs, bond issuances, trading insights, and market analytics.
More importantly, product differentiation depends on depth and accuracy. While top-tier IPOs on global exchanges grab headlines, informed investors are also seeking insights into:
Mid-market issuances
Regional exchanges and cross-border capital flows
Specialised products such as convertible debentures or structured bonds
This is where your financial data product can capture subscriber loyalty through coverage that goes deeper, beyond what popular syndicated feeds deliver. Ascentrik’s customised research gives you that ‘depth advantage.’
Conclusion: Empowering Data Product Managers in Capital Markets
The primary market and secondary market together represent the heartbeat of global finance. For financial data product managers, providing fresh, accurate, and comprehensive datasets on these markets is vital to both product adoption and subscriber growth.
But delivering this data requires expertise, scale, and agility. That’s where Ascentrik Research provides unmatched value. With our focus on customised secondary research, we bridge the gaps left by syndicated providers, sourcing hard-to-find capital markets data that makes your product indispensable.
By outsourcing financial data research to us, you gain a partner who ensures that your datasets remain timely, compliant, and insightful, allowing your internal teams to focus on innovation, product development, and user growth.
In an increasingly competitive financial data landscape, Ascentrik helps you differentiate, deliver quality, and drive success. With us, your users will always see your data as fresh, accurate, and trustworthy- everything a financial data product must deliver.
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