The Magazine for Securities Industry Professionals

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

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Online News

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

James Ramage
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.

SEC Gives Exchanges Room to Be Their Own Bosses

Nina Mehta
The Securities and Exchange Commission, bowing to pressure from exchanges that say they face greater competition than ever, is proposing to give exchanges more leeway to make quick changes in their markets. The SEC said Wednesday it would allow exchanges to institute a broader range of rule changes without getting prior SEC approval.

NYSE Is Fastest in Turnaround for Illiquid Names, Study Finds

Peter Chapman
The New York Stock Exchange, widely considered the slowest execution venue in the industry, outshines its competitors when it comes to turnaround times of less active NYSE stocks.

NYSE Bets on Broadcast Tool for Floor Brokers

Nina Mehta
The New York Stock Exchange, in an attempt to boost the face-to-face interactions that once characterized trading on its floor, quietly rolled out an electronic communication tool for floor brokers last month. Called BlockTalk, the product was designed by the NYSE in collaboration with Micro Design Services, the maker of floor brokers' handheld trading devices, and is available on those handhelds. BlockTalk, ironically, is an electronic tool intended to facilitate human interaction between floor brokers. Traders can broadcast messages indicating their interest in a particular stock to other floor brokers, who can respond via their handhelds and then go on to have an in-person conversation.

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

Peter Chapman
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

Nina Mehta
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.

Understanding of Dark Pools is Elusive, Reports Traders Magazine Survey

Nina Mehta
The dark pool landscape is changing so rapidly that a large portion of buyside traders can't keep up with some of the developments. According to a Traders Magazine electronic survey, 38 percent of buyside traders said they were not aware that some dark pools send out or receive information about resident orders. Nor were they aware that some dark pools send and receive electronic immediate-or-cancel orders from other venues.

Credit Suisse Lobbies for 'Fairer' Access to Dark Pools

Peter Chapman
Credit Suisse wants in. The big brokerage has gone to Washington to lobby for expanded access to dark pools. The firm, one of the largest electronic trading firms on Wall Street, is petitioning the Securities and Exchange Commission to reform the 10-year-old fair access rule of Regulation ATS.

Susquehanna Gets Into the Dark Pool Game

Nina Mehta
The dark pool arena continues to grow, with the latest entrant coming from Susquehanna Investment Group. SIG's RiverCross ATS launched quietly in mid-May. The dark pool had been in the works for well over a year.

SEC to Advise Mutual Fund Boards on Trading Desk Oversight

Peter Chapman
Buyside traders may soon find themselves under more scrutiny. The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to issue guidelines for mutual fund boards to aid them in their oversight of fund company trading practices.

Industry Leaders Frown on Dark Pool Trend

Nina Mehta
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, bucking a growing trend among the operators of dark pools, are vowing to stay pure. The two bulge-bracket shops tell Traders Magazine they have no intention of broadcasting out information about orders in MS Pool and Sigma X, their respective alternative trading systems. They say that occurs when electronic indications of interest are sent to third-party pools.

Investors Face Off Against Intermediaries in Soft Dollar Debate

Peter Chapman
A Securities and Exchange Commission proposal covering soft dollars is pitting investors against market intermediaries. The Council of Institutional Investors, which represents 130 pension funds handling a combined $3 trillion in assets, has given the SEC a thumbs-up for its move to re-write its soft dollar disclosure rules.

Nasdaq Sees Options Edge in New Statistics

Nina Mehta
Nasdaq Options Market, which launched in March, is betting it will outperform its competitors under some of the new execution-quality report guidelines expected to be recommended by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

New BNY ConvergEx Desk Focuses on the Dark

James Ramage
Let sales traders be sales traders. That's the current mantra at agency brokerage BNY ConvergEx, which has created a new three-person trading desk to address the proliferation of dark pools.

Buyside-Only IOIs Get Vast Distribution Network

Nina Mehta
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.