Inside Trading

Here are this month's Editor's Picks for the best and most newsworthy stories covered by Traders Magazine online news. These stories appear in abbreviated form. To read full length items, please visit our wesbite at www.tradersmagazine.com.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average may be up 1,343.15, or 10.2 percent, for the year and at an all-time record. But overall trading in equities is down.

The institutional equities business is moving to a one-touch coverage model, but the buyside's participation is optional. That's the message Brian Fagen, Deutsche Bank's head of North American execution services, sent to attendees at last month's TradeTech conference in New York, according to conference-goers.

Liquidnet told Traders Magazine last month that the platform it has been working on for more than a year to allow trading of shares between privately held companies and institutional investors is now "substantially complete."

The New York Stock Exchange is taking the wraps off a five-month-old system that allows floor traders to effect crosses in blocks of 10,000 shares or more, using electronic broking devices.

If all the talk of layoffs last year wasn't enough proof, the financial results from the five biggest U.S. equities houses confirm it: Last year was worse than the year before.

There is only one way to go when things hit rock bottom: up.That's the view on U.S. equity trading commissions and volume this year. One consultancy forecast that commissions will rise 9 percent and volume move up 6 percent.

Yawn. That's the reaction of U.S. equity traders and analysts to the acquisition of NYSE Euronext by the IntercontinentalExchange, the Atlanta-based operator of regulated futures exchanges, global OTC markets and clearinghouses in North America and Europe.

The fate of embattled Rochdale Securities is up in the air. The Stamford, Conn., brokerage continues to seek an injection of fresh capital as it awaits resolution of a federal investigation into an errant billion-dollar bet on Apple stock made by a Rochdale trader.

Trading volume on the nation's 10 largest exchanges dropped 13.8 percent in November. That is the smallest monthly drop in market activity since July.

Getting more business through wholesale order flow, during a period of sluggish trading volumes. That's what industry observers say is driving the two market-making and electronic trading firms that at presstime were looking at buying Knight Capital Group, which recently suffered a nearly fatal, self-inflicted technical wound.

Fidelity Capital Markets launched a new anonymous trading venue designed to help institutional traders find buyers or sellers of large blocks of stock, using retail order flow.

Despite some bumpy air and turbulence, LeveL ATS says its business has stabilized and that it is wooing clients back.

Equity traders can expect more coal in their stockings this holiday season, as bonuses are expected to be down for the third year in a row. Silver lining: 2013 is expected to be somewhat better, industry experts predict.

Representatives from exchanges, brokerages and money management firms on Nov. 9 called for a review of the hundreds of exchange order types in usage. Any such examination could mushroom into a broader review of market structure, they said.