Exegy Data Scientist Honored for Work on Intelligent Data
Jess Ridderhoff was named a Rising Star at the Women in Technology and Data Awards 2023
At the heart of Exegy’s groundbreaking intelligent market data is a talented team of data scientists constantly on the hunt for new insights about the markets. One of those team members, Jess Ridderhoff, was honored last week for her contributions to the company’s best-selling intelligent data product, Signum Liquidity Lamp.
Ridderhoff, a 25-year-old data scientist, was named a Rising Star at the 2023 Women in Technology and Data Awards in the category of Data, Engineering and Product Development (vendor). The event honors women who are standouts in technology and data for the financial markets.
Ridderhoff came to Exegy as an intern while studying computer science and electrical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. “I found the work so interesting that it just clicked, and I wanted to stay,” she said.
Among Ridderhoff’s first projects was assisting Exegy’s Director of Quantitative Research, Andy Lee, in fine-tuning a new iceberg order detection signal – Liquidity Lamp. It’s part of our Signum suite of predictive trading signals that help firms make data-driven decisions about where the market is headed.
Liquidity Lamp specifically looks for patterns in order flow on US equities exchanges to uncover and track iceberg (reserve) orders. These are a hidden order type offered by exchanges that allow institutional players and informed investors to trade large blocks of shares discreetly, by only showing part of the order at a time. Exegy currently offers these insights as real-time data and as end-of-day or intra-day summaries via .csv files.
When she started at Exegy, Ridderhoff knew little about the capital markets. She was immediately fascinated and has been expanding her knowledge ever since. “Each of my projects has started small, looking at very specific intricacies of market microstructure,” she said. “For Liquidity Lamp, I spent months looking at one family of exchanges at a time, slowly building my knowledge – from Cboe to NYSE to Nasdaq.”
As Ridderhoff dove into the data, Lee said she was able to make substantive contributions immediately. “It’s very unusual for someone that young to not be afraid to be an original contributor. Most interns are reluctant to say to me, ‘No, you’re wrong, here’s a better way,’ or ‘Sure, but have you considered that …’ but she could do that,” he said.
“She’s incredibly smart and detail oriented. She has an uncanny way of seeing things that others miss, and a great analytical mind.”
Ridderhoff continues to help refine the iceberg order detection signal. She works in development, improving the delivery of the real-time signal and its distribution channels, as well as in data science, looking for innovative uses of the data created by Liquidity Lamp.
She loves the freedom she’s been given to experiment and explore new ideas about market microstructure as she uncovers them. “At some companies, I might have only been given introductory jobs to do,” Ridderhoff said. “Here, I can go to Andy and say, ‘I have this idea,’ and we can have a conversation.”
Ridderhoff’s tireless curiosity about market microstructure continues to help enrich Exegy’s intelligent data offerings. To see the results and learn how to get Signum insights delivered daily, talk to us today.
