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Results of MDDL Technical Committee Meeting, Multex, New York City

April 19, 2001


Participants

Michael Atkin (FISD), Sudhakar Bandu (Lehman), Mike Benveniste (Fidelity), Anthony Coates,(Reuters), Jing Chin (Associated Press), Avner Gelb (SIAC), Mayank Gupta (Morgan Stanley), James Hartley (Bridge), Stuart Myles (Dow Jones), Jugal Poddar (Lehman), Mark Rayman (Merrill Lynch), Kevin Roche (Dow Jones), Warren Sample (Multex), Jeremy Sanders (Merrill Lynch), Koichi Shiroma (Bloomberg), David Waite (ILX), Adam Wellman (TIBCO-Extensibility), Tony Zhang (FinPortfolio)

Meeting Objectives

1. Review of work of Vocabulary Committee on domain and descriptor summaries;

2. Discussion of position papers on technical issues;

3. Discussion of user case examples;

4. Approach for developing the MDDL schema/DTD;

5. Documentation; and

6. External relationships including the importance of communication on the status of efforts to date to ensure global buy-in to the standard.

Vocabulary Committee Report

The Vocabulary Committee has made progress on the development of the domain summary (includes the broad categories -- instruments, corporate events, and indicators plus the classes and sub-classes for each) and on the descriptor summary (includes the type of information required to be defined for each domain class). Both summaries are posted on the new MDDL web site and available for reference by the full working group.

The following issues were identified in the April 18 Vocabulary Committee for Technical Committee consideration and for incorporation into the structure of the schema/DTD.

1. Identification -- the Vocabulary Committee (VC) members posed two identification issues for Technical Committee (TC) consideration. The first is the requirement for source identification (i.e. a source is an entity that could have multiple locations). The second is the requirement for multiple identifiers per domain category. The Technical Committee (TC) understands both requirements and does not foresee a problem with facilitating multiple identification schemes.

2. Currency -- the VC wanted assurance that a mechanism could be defined to facilitate currency identification particularly since currency is likely to be an attribute of virtually every price field. The TC discussed the issue and concluded that currency identification could be incorporated into the technical approach.

3. Underlying Relationships -- the VC was unclear how to handle the critical relationship between some types of financial instruments -- including trading relationships such as between an underlying security and its derivative components as well as calculation relationships such as between an index and the index components. The TC discussed the issue and concludes that they can design a technical mechanism to preserve the integrity of underlying relationships.

Position Papers

Members of the TC submitted a number of position papers on the core technical issues associated with MDDL. James Hartley integrated the various discussions into a draft document for review by the members of the TC. The position papers represent the current statement of approach and will be posted to the web in draft form. They will be posted to the web upon approval by the editor(s). Updates will occur periodically as appropriate. Here's a quick synopsis:

1. Hierarchical versus Flat Structure -- general consensus is that the MDDL specification could be both. The actual representation of the elements will be dictated by the structure of the data as defined by the VC.

2. DTD versus Schema -- general consensus that both are required.

3. Conformance versus Compliance -- general consensus is that compliance tools are needed but unlikely for the initial release of MDDL.

4. Elements versus Attributes -- no consensus reached. The approach will need to be debated and established based on a review of other XML approaches.

5. Extensibility -- general consensus is that MDDL will be extensible

6. Name Space -- the MDDL name space will be MDDL.org and fisd.net/mddl

7. Request and Response Mechanisms -- general consensus is that MDDL should provide for both request and response mechanisms but the request format will be deferred until after MDDL version 1.0.

8. Documentation -- required

User Case Examples

The TC is working on the development of initial practical examples as the basis for the MDDL data model and to be used to help develop the approach to the development of the MDDL schema/DTD.

For example, the TC had a fairly detailed discussion on the concept of "repeatability" and the identification of data elements that are identical (and can be assumed) versus those that are adjustable (and need specific definition). Repeatable descriptors and how they are expressed are critical components of the schema and will help define the data relationship rules for MDDL.

James Hartley provided the following reference to an example HTML file http://dpg.bridge.com/MDDL/MDDLex1.htm containing a mix of instruments, dates, times, countries, sources, and currencies. The challenge is to develop an assessment of what is required from MDDL too generate this display. The MDDL domain and descriptor summaries can be assessed via the new MDDL web site documents page.

Header/Document Description

There was a substantive debate on the MDDL header and specifically whether any of the header elements were mandatory. The general consensus was that the only mandatory information would be the MDDL version number. The rest is optional.

External Relationships

There was a meeting on April 12 among representatives from XBRL, RIXML, IRML, NewsML and MDDL to discuss mutual cooperation and coordination on the scope of the various standards. The objective is to avoid duplication of effort where ever possible. The meeting was productive and the communication process has been initiated. The key participants will be added to the MDDL database/Technical Committee and kept apprised of developments.

New Web Site

The revised MDDL web site has been implemented. Click here to take a look http://www.fisd.net/mddl/default.html.

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Technical Committee is scheduled for May 8 from 9:00 am - 1:00 pm EST at Bridge (3 World Financial Center, 28th Floor Conference Room (Enter on 27th Floor) in New York City. RSVP your participation to Tom Andresen (tandresen@siia.net) (p) 202-452-1600 x309.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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