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Four of the six charges against former NYSE chairman Richard Grasso have been overturned regarding his $187.5 million compensation package. The final outcome?

Grasso will settle the case
NY State will not pursue the case
Grasso lost his reputation, regardless
Not Spitzer's worst decision but up there

Previous Polls

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Brokerage Department

Industry News

More Self-Trading Makes for Less Than Rosy Outlook for Sales Traders

Buyside adoption of electronic trading tools is putting many sales traders out of work and making the job tougher for those hanging on. The future promises more of the same.

Rule Changes: NYSE Euronext Bets on Specialists to Revive Broken Floor

Last week's announcement by NYSE Euronext of plans to revitalize its faltering New York Stock Exchange unit by freeing its specialists to trade more and better hedge their risks sends a strong signal to the industry that the company still sees value in its floor model. It's a risky bet, some say. Despite a continued drop in both market share and total volume at the NYSE this year, NYSE Euronext management continues to believe there is a role for a marketplace characterized by specialist support and less than strict price and time priority.

Rule Changes: Brokers on NYSE Floor Could Get an Edge

NYSE Euronext's slate of new proposed changes for the New York Stock Exchange will affect floor brokers just as surely as they will affect specialists. The exchange operator last Friday submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission a 271-page rule proposal to overhaul its market model. The SEC is expected to publish the rule filing for comment shortly. For floor brokers, as for specialists, the proposed changes take the form of a renewed focus on parity as a central tenet at the NYSE. Floor brokers will also get new tools and order types designed to enable them to represent orders more effectively in an increasingly electronic market.

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Articles from Traders Magazine

SPACs Go Mainstream

A boom for bankers is a bust for traders. They represent more than a third of all initial public offerings so far this year. They accounted for about a quarter of all IPOs last year. But unlike most new listings, they have not done much for trading desks. SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, are corporate shells brought public for the express purpose of acquiring a going concern. They have been around for years, but mostly as micro-cap oddities trading in the over-the-counter market.

Sweetening the Pot

The business of listing new exchange-traded funds is in the doldrums and so are Nasdaq's plans to build a competing ETF marketplace. The exchange said last September that when it launched its new service in a month it would be shooting for 100 listings very soon thereafter. So far, it has added just nine to its initial 20. As part of its plan to lure infant ETFs, Nasdaq this spring sweetened the terms of its rebate policy for ETF market makers. Nasdaq recently began paying "designated liquidity providers," those market makers who seed and

Foreign Stocks Go Real-Time

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, under pressure from the over-the-counter trading community, has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to report OTC trades in foreign securities in real time. FINRA's proposed changes to NASD Rule 6620 follow a three-year campaign by Pink OTC Markets and the Security Traders Association to require it to disseminate the last-sale reports as soon as the trades are reported by dealers. Now, the regulator only reports a summary of trading activity at the end of the day.

FINRA Advises on Rogue Trading

Take that vacation! That recommendation is at the top of the list in a memorandum issued by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority addressing ways to detect and prevent rogue trading. Traders, FINRA says, should be required to take 10 consecutive trading days of vacation time so any unauthorized trades they might have made can be detected.

FINRA Targets Manning for Change

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority recently outlined a plan to make its all-important Manning Rule look more like its counterpart at the New York Stock Exchange, Rule 92. The move is part of a broader attempt to reduce the regulatory burden on broker-

Proposal Threatens Canadian Stocks

The Securities and Exchange Commission, in an attempt to lighten the burden on foreign issuers of unregistered securities, may in fact be driving foreign companies away from U.S. securities markets. Dually listed Canadian companies are most at risk. That's the complaint from traders of over-the-counter securities, as well as the operator of the primary marketplace for unregistered foreign stocks, Pink OTC Markets. They applaud the SEC's efforts to relax certain requirements of Exchange Act Rule 12g3-2. But they oppose the regulator's proposal to add a new requirement to the rule that could force foreign companies to register with the SEC.