MDML

The Market Data Markup Language, MDML, is an XML specification originally developed by Dow Jones in 1999 to describe market data, symbology and portfolio information on their web site. Later WSJ.com (Wall Street Journal) began using MDML as an interchange format with an internal database of corporate earnings, and with Factiva, the electronic archival service that is a joint venture of Dow Jones and Reuters Inc. Today the Financial Information Services Division (FISD) of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) hosts the Market Data Working Group.

The MDML XML Working Group will attempt "to consolidate industry efforts to define the parameters of the XML for market data discussion (such as the fields needed to describe a security and its price). Examples of such fields include the Identifier, ISIN, CUSIP, Last, Open, Best Bid, Best Ask, Close, Next Bid, Size, Maturity Date, Coupon, Yield, Call/Put, Strike Price, etc.  MDML addresses user firms interested in extracting information from a vendor's data feed ('vendor' defined as any information provider including exchanges and contributors) into common desktop applications. The requirement is not for an individual trader who wants access to multiple sources of data, but rather for distributing information to disparate systems throughout the organization.