Table of Contents

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

Register for tradersmagazine.com - it's FREE!
	Sign up today and gain immediate access to the TRADERS Magazine Web content! Your FREE member registration entitles you to: FREE e-Newsletters 2,900 searchable articles Online Technology Directories Photo Galleries

Buyside Department

Industry News

Buyside-Only IOIs Get Vast Distribution Network

Buyside traders may soon find themselves competing with brokers by using indications of interest to find the other side for large orders. At least that's the goal of Pulse Trading's BlockCross ATS, whose buyside-to-buyside IOI product can now reach thousands of institutions with a Bloomberg terminal. The IOIs are immediately executable.

Fragmentation Poses a Problem, Buyside Tells Traders Magazine

Four out of five respondents to a Traders Magazine survey say fragmentation in the marketplace poses a problem for best execution. According to the survey, which included 126 buyside firms, slower fills and inferior prices are the major trading issues associated with today's fragmented market.

More

Articles from Traders Magazine

Boot Camp for Traders

James Hill's first preparations to run a trading desk happened long before he took the reins one year ago as head of equity trading at Hartford Investment Management Co. (HIMCO). The analytical process Hill learned from his military training in the Army has paid dividends in trading for the passive and quantitative manager overseeing $6.7 billion in equities. "All of the discipline and organization that come from the military totally translate to this job," says Hill, a 1989 West Point graduate who fought in the first Persian Gulf war. He also earned an MBA from Duke University before landing on the international trading desk in 1996 at Lehman Brothers. There he made markets in Asian ADRs and later in Nasdaq stocks at Fidelity Capital Markets.

Trading's New Playground

Trading and living in sunny St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, might entitle some Canadians to hardship pay. After all, there's no ice hockey, no ice skating, no Grey Cup and certainly no sub-freezing temperatures in this tropical paradise. But don't count Acadia Fund's Andrew Bell in that group. "I thank God that I'm here every day," says the Ottawa native who's headed trading since 2005. Acadia is Miller & Jacobs Capital's on-shore hedge fund. The parent manages $200 million in equities, and also sub-advises on two mutual funds.

Thrills and Chills

As trading environments go, the current one almost couldn't get any wilder. Experts say today's equities market hasn't been this volatile since the Great Depression. The large jumps in prices have meant greater risk, higher volumes and wider spreads for traders intermittently for more than seven months. But the buyside hasn't crumbled in despair. And their latest electronic tools haven't led them off a cliff, as some expected. Instead, traders have tackled the volatility and adapted. Many have made some key changes to their trading strategies and found ways to lower costs and find opportunities.

Using the New Trading Tools

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

Trade-cost analysis (TCA) will become more important to the buyside. TCA will also become a more valuable tool to lessen the costs of trading. Those were the opinions of 99 buyside trading professionals in a Traders Magazine survey on trade-cost analysis conducted 13 months ago. In fact, 78 percent of those polled said that TCA will not only get better as a predictive tool, but nearly 60 percent said it will become a larger part of their compensation formula. That survey foreshadowed some of the strategies chronicled in last's month's cover story, "Old Dogs, New Tricks." The feature outlined how two large buyside shops-AllianceBernstein and Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM)-are supporters of using quantitative tools in their quest to trade stocks more cheaply and efficiently.

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Buyside traders' relationships with their firms' portfolio managers are clearly evolving as PMs fret more about performance amid a rapidly changing and fragmenting marketplace. While not all traders and PMs work closely together, enough have decided that closer collaboration will result in better trades.