The Magazine for Securities Industry Professionals

Industry News

Two Openings OK with SEC

May 9, 2008 – The Securities and Exchange Commission, despite warnings from the Security Traders Association, is not overly concerned with two openings in a single stock. "We've chosen to let a thousand markets bloom in [terms of] market structures," Erik Sirri, director of the SEC's Division of Trading and Markets, said at the annual STA Washington, D.C., conference earlier this week. He noted that while there may be "unusual price variations, that's a market structure choice we've made."

More Options Exchanges Plan to Hide Quotes

NYSE Euronext Focused on Amex's Declining Options Market Share

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Featured Articles

Picking Up the Pieces

April 3, 2008 – The scenario sounds simple. You're an institutional buyside trader who just got an order to sell 100,000 shares of an illiquid name at a specific price as soon as possible. Where do you begin? Maybe 10 years ago you'd have shipped it to the New York Stock Exchange floor, where for decades 80 percent of all of its shares traded. But because the market's now far more fragmented, just under 40 percent of listed stocks trade there. So, do you execute it yourself or call a broker? If you handle it yourself, as more of the buyside is, you're faced with a plethora

Handing Over the Keys

No Heroes in "King of Club"

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Inside Trading

Big Blocks...Trading a Little at a Time?

April 3, 2008 – At Credit Suisse's AES Equity Derivatives Trading Forum in Miami at the end of February, Rob Maher, who heads AES sales in Europe, made the case in a presentation that trading lots of small orders algorithmically is often more efficient and cheaper than going the traditional block route. However, not all block traders have caught on. Maher offered a summary of buyside traders' common complaints regarding block trading.

Dark Pools Eye Retail Flow

ECNs Encroaching on Exchange Turf

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People

On The Move

April 3, 2008 – Noreddine Sebti, global head of equity trading at Deutsche Bank, is moving from New York to Hong Kong. There he will assume regional responsibility for the equities business in Asia. Sebti will keep his current title and continue to report to Yassine Bouhara, Deutsche Bank's global head of equities. "Locating a global business head in Asia clearly demonstrates the changing polarity of global equity markets and the growing importance of the region," Bouhara said in a statement. Sebti joined Deutsche Bank in 1998 and has held several senior roles in London and New York. He is a former derivatives trader.

On The Move

Bravo, Bravo for High Touch

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Rules and Regs

SEC Expands Soft Dollar Disclosure

April 3, 2008 – The Securities and Exchange Commission's new soft dollar disclosure rules, part of a proposed revision of Form ADV, will have an impact on relations between investment advisers and their customers, the experts agree. How difficult it will be for money managers to comply with the proposed changes is not as clear.

EU to SEC: No Cherry-Picking

SEC Warns Brokers on Dark Duties

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Options

Redoing Ties that Bind

April 3, 2008 – Trading large lots could get easier under a plan being put together by the industry's options exchanges. The International Securities Exchange and NYSE Arca, hoping to speed up trading in a marketplace that has become much more fragmented under the "penny pilot," are spearheading a redesign of the industry's Options Linkage Plan. The proposal is intended to make sweeping multiple exchanges faster for large-lot traders by incorporating elements of the equities market's Regulation NMS. "We have a consensus of all the exchanges to move forward and replace our current linkage with a more Reg NMS-like linkage plan," says Mike Simon, the ISE's general counsel and chief regulatory officer. "I think one year from now, we will have it implemented."

Options Exchanges Mull Depth-of-Book Feeds

Dark Fight in Midst of Options Battle

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Tech Notes

Big Board Boots BBSS

April 3, 2008 – The New York Stock Exchange is replacing key components of its infrastructure used by floor brokers. First to go is the order management system known as the Broker Booth Support System (BBSS).

Credit Suisse's New Data Center

CBOE Automates Buy Writes

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Vendor Solutions

OMS Vendors Regroup

January 31, 2008 – NYFIX's sudden decision last year to stop selling order management systems to market makers highlights the difficulties vendors face in supporting this segment of the sellside market. The three vendors that remain acknowledge the challenges, but claim their multi-faceted strategies fit the times.

Neovest’s Do-It-Yourself Algo Revolution

OMS Vendors Eye the Buyside

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Clearing

The Young Guns of Prime

April 3, 2008 – Pershing and Fidelity, two recent prime brokerage entrants backed by deep-pocketed parent companies, hope securities lending will propel them among the elite primes. Still, these prime brokerage units-launched by financial services giants Fidelity Capital Services and BNY Mellon's Pershing-are competing with long-established, bigger firms like Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs. "Fidelity, as an agency-only broker, could be an effective prime broker player," says Josh Galper, managing principal with the consultant Vodia Group.

Pershing's Mexican Interdealer Coup

Broadridge Brings on New Outsourcing Customers

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Buyside Snapshot

Using the New Trading Tools

April 3, 2008 – Don't overlook using new electronic trading tools or new venues. But be very careful in the process. That's the philosophy of Patrick Elias, a trader at BNY Mellon Wealth Management in Pittsburgh. The 35-year-old trader says he's young enough to owe no loyalty to traditional means of execution. So he has adapted his trading techniques-like everyone else. Elias estimates that he will likely do so again. Indeed, change comes as less of a shock to this 10-year veteran than it does for those with more experience, Elias says.

Opportunities through TCA

GE Asset Looks to Close the Information Loop

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