Item 1. Business
ITEM 1. BUSINESS.
General
QuoteMedia, Inc. (OTCQB: QMCI) is a leading provider of financial data, market research information , analytics, news feeds, and financial software solutions to online brokerages, banks, clearing firms, financial service companies, media portals, and public corporations. We are a single source for a wide array of market information and services, including streaming stock market data feeds, research and analysis information, content applications, portfolio management systems, software products, corporate investor relations provisioning, news services, mobile apps, and custom development. Our portfolio management products are provided on a SaaS (software as a service) model, as are our other interactive content and data APIs.
We have created a scalable system that aggregates, manages, and streams information from the stock exchanges and from other information and content feeds across both the Web and dedicated telecommunication lines. Because QuoteMedia is a comprehensive single-source market data provider, our clients are not required to deal with multiple data vendors, many of which continue to employ outdated infrastructures and delivery technologies. This allows our clients to license comprehensive financial information applications and raw data more efficiently and cost-effectively.
QuoteMedia offers clients the advantages of a single source for a broad range of data, information, and services, including:
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Streaming Real-time Data Feeds
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Dynamic Content Web Displays
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Data APIs, XML and JSON Data
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News Feed Aggregation and Delivery
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Mobile App Solutions
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Complete Portfolio Management
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Corporate Investor Relations Solutions
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Research Information Supply
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Custom Software Application Development
Our data delivery solutions are fast, lightweight, reliable, and easy to implement across all platforms. Our products are technologically advanced, providing a framework for quick implementation, seamless client integration and complete customization.
We are a United States reporting public company that was incorporated in the State of Nevada in 1999. Our shares are quoted on the OTCQB tier of the OTC Markets under the trading symbol QMCI. Our corporate head office is located at 17100 East Shea Boulevard, Suite 230, Fountain Hills, Arizona 85268, and our telephone number is (480) 905-7311. All references to our business operations in this report include the operations of QuoteMedia, Inc. and our operating divisions and subsidiaries.
Our Web site is located at www.quotemedia.com. Through our Web site we make available free of charge the following company information: our annual reports on Form 10-K; our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q; our current reports on Form 8-K; our proxy statements; and any amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These reports are available as soon as reasonably practical after we electronically file these reports with the SEC. We also post on our Web site the charter of our Audit Committee; our Corporate Governance Guidelines; our Code of Business Conduct/Ethics and Code of Ethics for the CEO and Senior Financial Officers, and any amendments or waivers thereto; and any other corporate governance materials contemplated by SEC or applicable regulations. These documents are also available in print to any stockholder requesting a copy from our corporate secretary at our principal executive offices.
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Products and Services
QuoteMedia has developed a full range of financial data and market information solutions which are licensed to our clients on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Our products and services are divided into three main categories: Data Feed Services; Interactive Web Content and Data APIs; and Portfolio Management and Real-Time Quote Systems.
Data Feed Services
QuoteMedia offers comprehensive, low latency, tick-by-tick enterprise level streaming market data feeds delivered over the Internet or via dedicated telecommunication lines, as well as supplemental fundamental, historical, and analytical data, keyed to the same symbology which provides a complete market data solution to our customers. Currently, QuoteMedia’s Data Feed services include complete coverage of North American exchanges and over 70 exchanges worldwide. Data Feeds coverage includes equities, options, futures, commodities, currencies, mutual funds, ETFs, and indices. The data is normalized for ease of use and is provided in a wide range of formats and delivery methods. Data is available in real-time, delayed, and end-of-day format, as well as Level 1 and Level 2 (Market Depth).
QuoteMedia has also created Quotestream Connect TM , a hybrid of our existing Data Feed Services, and our Portfolio Management Systems. It is a new method of delivering real-time data feeds to individual users to power 3 rd party applications. In most cases, this allows QuoteMedia to retain Vendor of Record status with the exchanges - resulting in significant savings for our clients in resources and exchange fees.
Interactive Content and Data APIs
QuoteMedia’s proprietary financial software applications and widgets (QMod TM ) comprise a unique suite of custom Web technologies that combine the power and depth of established financial databases with the flexibility and efficiency of the Web to deliver customized high-quality content to clients around the world. QuoteMedia financial data delivery application products and components comprise an extensive product line that spans the spectrum of Quote Modules, Charts, Market Movers, News, Watch Lists, Tickers, Market Summaries, Option Chains, Filings, Investor Relations Solutions, Fundamentals, Screeners and much more. Our lightweight and fast-loading applications provide an extensive array of information in a variety of delivery vehicles. All of our content solutions are completely customizable, embed directly into client Web pages for seamless integration with existing content, and are licensed to our Clients on a recurring subscription basis. Our Interactive Content and Data APIs include the following:
Quote Modules - allow users to enter information and look up various data points on equities, funds, rates, currencies and the markets. Our Quote Modules provide complete market data and supplemental data coverage. This comprehensive coverage consists of fundamental data (EPS, P/E ratio, dividends, yield, shares outstanding, market cap, etc.), analytical statistics (52 week high/low, moving averages, average volumes, moving performance numbers), historical EOD data (fully adjusted and keyed historical data), market updates, North American indices, market movers, actives, gainers, losers, company information (business description, address, phone, fax, auditors, officers, etc.), classification codes (sector, industry, NAICS, SIC, CIK, etc.), share statistics (shares outstanding, float, holdings, profitability, management effectiveness, short interest, short interest ratio), as well as broader market information such as bank rates and currency values. The data returned is compact, customizable, and incorporates comprehensive information, including charts, news, historical stock prices, market depth, filings, insiders, financials, and other information.
Real-Time Snap Quotes - Cost-effective, customizable, instant real-time quotes and market data, real-time charts, real-time level II, and real-time options. The real-time snap quote service features client-controlled entitlements, comprehensive online tracking, detailed reporting capabilities, and North American exchange fee capping. These features are unique to our company and result in greater efficiency and cost savings for our clients.
Market Indices - At-a-glance display of market conditions, fed directly from the major North American and international exchanges and index providers.
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Charts - Markets and equity charting are available in a variety of formats. Static thumbnails or dynamic interactive charting is available to allow full market charting or individual stock performance displays, including comparisons to other equities or indices, as well as the ability to plot a wide range of technical studies.
Stock Screeners - Allow users to filter stocks based on a wide variety of selection criteria, including sector/industry, share price, market cap, exchange, EPS, P/E ratio, etc.
Fund Screeners - Allow users to filter US or Canadian mutual funds based on an array of different characteristics, including fund types, performance metrics, fee structures, etc.
News - Topic-based, sector-based and equity-based lookup of news stories and commentary relating to the markets, individual companies, or specific areas of interest.
Watch Lists - Display current values and trends for a group of user-defined equities and indices.
Market Statistics - Top gainers and losers on the day for a variety of exchanges and detailed statistical analysis of most actively traded stocks. A variety of economic indicators are also provided.
Financial Calendars - Including Corporate Events Calendars, Economic Calendars, Stock Market Holiday and Trading Calendars etc.
Wallboards - Deliver updating market data and news headlines in Real-Time for display to power the wall board for trade floors, classrooms or other wall displays. Ideal for displaying Indices, Commodities Prices (such as Gold, Silver, Oil and Gas), Currencies, Rates, News Headlines and Commentary, and can even incorporate a client’s own content or advertising.
Finance Calculators - Examples include: Bond Yield, Cost Basis, Future Asset Value, Loan Payment, Investment Calculator, Monthly Mortgage Payment, Present Asset Value, Rate of Return, Total Return, Currency Converter, etc.
Investor Relations - Information on current value, historical data, charting and news, and other data related to individual public companies for investor relations information provisioning. These products provide a turnkey and self-updating investor relations solution for corporate Web sites and their investors.
QMod TM - QuoteMedia’s proprietary web delivery system, called QMod, was created for secure market data provisioning as well as ease of integration and unlimited customization and responsiveness. QMod is an extensible market data component JavaScript library used to deliver market data content to Web platforms powered by JSON back-ends. With extensibility in mind, QMod can be utilized to build custom applications on demand for clients as well as continue to improve existing and new components with ease. The resulting widgets are mobile-ready because they automatically re-size and optimize based on the type of device they are viewed on - whether a laptop, tablet, or any model of mobile phone. And, unlike competitive products, QMod is SEO friendly, providing self-generating, automatically updating content that is optimized for search engine indexing - whereas the content and associated links delivered through most competitors’ widgets are essentially invisible to search engine web crawlers.
Portfolio Management Systems
QuoteMedia offers three leading edge portfolio managements systems: Quotestream™ Desktop and Mobile; Quotestream™ Professional; and a Web Portfolio Management product. Each of these systems can be implemented independently, or they can be employed in conjunction with each other to provide a complete portfolio management solution for both nonprofessionals and professionals.
Quotestream™ Desktop (Download), Web (Browser) and Mobile Apps
QuoteMedia’s proprietary software, Quotestream, is our unique, Web-delivered, embedded application providing real-time, tick-by-tick, streaming market quotes and research information. Quotestream is the next generation portfolio management system for nonprofessional users, with enhanced features and functionality compared to our original Quotestream product - most notably tick-by-tick true streaming data, significantly enhanced charting features, and a broad range of additional research and analytical content and custom functionality. Quotestream is geared towards providing a professional-level experience to non-professional users. Coverage includes North American and LSE real-time data, NASDAQ, TSX, TSXV and LSE Level 2 data (market depth), market indices, dynamic and interactive charts, options, news and research information, and end-of-day quote data for over 35 international exchanges, in an easy-to-use and highly configurable interface.
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Quotestream Web is the latest HTML5, browser-based version of Quotestream. No downloads or installations are required with this quick, lightweight and robust application. It is a sophisticated streaming portfolio management solution that only requires a browser, allowing users to track investments and access research data with ease.
The Quotestream Suite of products has been designed specifically for syndication and private branding by brokerage, banking, and other corporate clients. It can be fully integrated into existing user registration databases, portfolio systems and on-line trading systems, thus enabling any brokerage, clearing firm, bank or other corporation to seamlessly complement their existing product offerings and differentiate themselves from their competition.
QuoteMedia corporate clients purchase volume licenses for their customers, gaining significant increases in customer attraction, retention and activity, and increased revenues as a result.
Quotestream Web and Desktop offer the user custom portfolios and watchlists, market summaries, Level 1 and Level 2 data, a trade trend meter, volume leaders, top gainers and losers, company news, insider activity, SEC filings, research, analysis and opinions, earnings forecasts, news, index/stock ticker, intraday and historical charting, interactive charting, desktop alerts, and email alerts. Users may fully customize their workspaces to suit their needs. The design also offers a very simple point-and-click and drag-and-drop navigation with little or no typing involved. Quotestream displays in full screen mode, providing a comprehensive professional trade terminal-style interface.
QuoteMedia’s Quotestream Mobile is a revolutionary mobile companion to the Desktop and Web product that allows users to access financial data, news, and charting in real-time or delayed modes, from handheld devices. Quotestream Mobile allows users to manage their portfolios and watchlists, and access market research on phones and tablets. Quotestream Mobile supports iOS™ and Android™.
Quotestream Mobile can be integrated with any brokerage/clearing firm’s existing on-line trading platform without the installation of expensive business enterprise servers. Additionally, the application is designed to allow private branding by brokerage, banking, and other corporate clients.
Quotestream Mobile, Quotestream Desktop, and Quotestream Web are true companion products as any changes made to portfolios in either application are automatically reflected in the other.
Quotestream™ Professional
Quotestream Professional is designed specifically for use by financial services professionals and their key support personnel, offering exceptional coverage and functionality at extremely aggressive pricing. Quotestream Professional features broad market coverage, reliability, complete flexibility, ultra low-latency tick-by-tick data, as well as completely customizable screens, advanced charting, comprehensive technical analysis, news and research data.
Quotestream Professional was created with the latest technology, making QuoteMedia’s professional application one of the most sophisticated, user-friendly and dependable market data and technical analysis solutions available to market professionals today. It provides true thin client access as there is no software to download, no upgrades to install, and no technical staff required. Quotestream Professional is accessed via the Internet, avoiding expensive server and circuit infrastructure requirements.
Quotestream Professional also features mobile access to the same portfolios and market data entitlements through mobile devices. The desktop and mobile applications work in a companion relationship, where any changes made on one device immediately transfer to the other.
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Web Portfolio Manager
The Web Portfolio Manager is a user-friendly yet powerful solution allowing users to track their holdings, conduct in-depth research and analyze performance for all stocks, mutual funds and indices listed on any of the major global exchanges.
The Web Portfolio Manager provides immediate Web access to detailed Quote Data, Market and Company News, Charting, Depth / Level II, Filings, Historical Data, Snap Quotes and more. The Web Portfolio Manager is an efficient and economical solution for both the new and experienced investor.
The Web Portfolio Manager offers corporate clients such as banks, wealth management companies, brokerages, clearing firms and Web portals an ideal opportunity to cost-effectively provide premium online portfolio management services for their investor customers.
The Web Portfolio Manager can be integrated with the Quotestream products so that changes in any one platform, including real-time data entitlements, are reflected across the other systems.
Quotestream Connect TM
Quotestream Connect TM is a hybrid of our existing Data Feed Services, and our Portfolio Management Systems. It is a new method of delivering real-time data feeds to individual users to power third party applications. In most cases, this allows QuoteMedia to retain Vendor of Record status with the exchanges - resulting in significant savings for our clients in resources and exchange fees.
Products Competitive Advantage
Our products attract a broad market base, targeting corporate clients worldwide and providing comprehensive financial data services in a wide selection of custom packages. Markets for our services include:
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Online brokerages
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Mutual fund companies
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Full-service brokerage firms
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Internet service providers
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Banks and other financial institutions
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Media companies
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Financial Web sites
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Publishers and Data firms
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Web portals
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Wealth management companies
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Public companies
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Individual traders and investors
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Investor relations firms
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Securities exchanges
Our financial data services provide a sensible solution to the high up-front cost of in-house developed software. We leverage our technical talent and innovative infrastructure across multiple client platforms, thus creating an economical, efficient and scalable system that can manage and deliver information application capabilities to an unlimited number of entities from data centers and content feeds across the Internet and over dedicated lines. Our data feeds have among the lowest latency of any available in the market and are developed and delivered using technology that is more current than that used by many major competitors in this market. Our marketing strategy is based on the following key competitive advantages:
Superior Products - Our goal has always been to create the best products on the market. We develop all of our products in-house and take pride in creating quality applications. Our products stand out for their superior design, user-friendliness, ease of implementation, customizability, reliability, data speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Custom Development - QuoteMedia’s ability to provide complete custom design and development services differentiates us from our competitors. We can create custom market data applications and software engineered precisely to our clients’ specifications, and the speed with which we are able to take a product from concept to deliverable truly sets us apart.
Data Speed and Quality - Our connections to the world’s exchanges for equities and derivatives have most sources of latency removed allowing us to deliver extremely fast, accurate, and reliable data.
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Single Source Provider - Clients are eager to acquire premium market data feeds, financial applications, streaming solutions, and news and research information from a single source provider. Rather than having to license applications, information and market data from multiple sources, our clients enjoy the benefits of dealing with a single comprehensive market data supplier.
Cutting Edge Data Delivery Technology - We use state-of-the-art hardware and software systems for maximum speed and efficiency. This provides us with a distinct advantage over our competitors, most of whom use outdated data delivery technologies based on legacy style data networks.
Effective Marketing - We have implemented a marketing strategy that focuses on multiple markets for our products and services, from individual nonprofessional end users to corporate and institutional clients and their customers.
Low Infrastructure Costs - Because of the unique technological advancements in data delivery developed by our company, our distribution model, and the strategic partnerships that are in place, we have maintained very low corporate overhead. All of our development is completed in-house, resulting in significant cost efficiencies. This allows us to focus our resources on data management, data acquisition, customer satisfaction, and business development activities. Our low-cost base of development and operation also allows us to maintain very competitive pricing.
Competition
Many companies provide financial market data and related information. Companies such as Bloomberg and Rifinitiv and Factset are some of the data providers in this highly competitive marketplace.
While there are many financial data providers, what mainly differentiates us from others is that we offer clients a comprehensive solution for stock market-related information provisioning with more advanced technologies than employed by most of our competitors. Our diversity of technical expertise, agile responsiveness to custom corporate requirements and development needs, and proven commitment to superior delivery technologies have established QuoteMedia as a frontrunner in the financial market data industry.
QuoteMedia’s array of products benefit clients with an exceptional number of strong technical differentiators in embedded, fully private-labeled and seamlessly integrated environments which combine to offer strong market differentiation.
Trademarks, Domain Names and Intellectual Property
We own the trademarks for “QuoteMedia”, “Quotestream” and “QMod”, the domain names www.quotemedia.com; www.quotestream.com; and www.quotestream.ca. We will continue to own and protect these key assets into the future.
We protect our other intellectual property by a combination of copyrights, trademarks and confidentiality agreements with our employees, customers and other agents.
Regulatory Issues
We are not subject to any special governmental regulation concerning our supplying of products and services to the marketplace, and we believe we are in compliance in all material respects with all existing regulations governing other aspects of our businesses.
Employees
We currently have a total of 94 full-time employees, with 10 located in the United States and 84 located in Canada. Our employees are not members of any union, nor have we entered into any collective bargaining agreements. We believe that we have a good relationship with our employees. With the successful implementation of our business plan, we may hire additional employees during fiscal 2022 to handle anticipated growth in the areas of administration, programming, sales, marketing, and customer care.
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Text extracted from the filing as submitted to EDGAR. Formatting, tables and exhibits are simplified for reading; the original document is authoritative for anything you rely on.