Compaq Computer Ltd, based in Richmond Surrey, yesterday hosted what was termed a corporate briefing on dealing room systems. Gestronic UK, previously Teleprocessing Computer Centre Ltd, was there, and showed off its Dealers Choice System. Based on Compaq 386 machines, it is a real-time front office system with back office integration. The system has touch screen windows and is connected by a local area network. It provides an electronic blotter to record transactions, an on-screen deal ticket, a real time trade database and information distribution and tailorable displays. Gestronic UK has exclusive marketing rights in the UK, New Zealand and Hong Kong, and each workstation costs between $20,000 and $30,000. Also present at the briefing was Andrew Alexander, City editor of the Daily Mail, fresh from his coup of going out on a limb and forecasting that Lord Hanson would bid for Consolidated Gold Fields Plc in a piece that appeared the morning the bid was announced. In a presentation entitled Forecasting and real information: facts Vs pseudo-science, he quoted ex-Lord Chancellor F E Smith, and left us not much wiser on the art of forecasting, but better informed. According to Alexander, we ought to worry about decisions made on the basis of essentially historical information. Stockbrokers may send out information that they received a day or a week before. The best forecasts come from people who are bang-up-to-date and highly informed, hence the importance of real-time information systems. Alexander’s own record is not unrespectable, and he made a few forecasts on the day which should be of interest to anyone concerned with UK interest rates and the future of the pound. He reckons there will be a new Chancellor of the Exchequer in six weeks time, possibly John Major. Unlike Nigel Lawson, Mr Major tends to agree with the Prime Minister’s economic advisor, Professor Walters. Both gentlemen feel that the rate of exchange is largely irrelevant to inflation, and the pound ought to find its own level, not be artificially maintained. Whatever the outcome of Downing Street politicking, Alexander believes technology enables government, decision makers and forecasters to be well-informed.
