After years of falling membership, STANY president Patrick Armstrong believes the group’s membership numbers have started to stabilize. At its peak, some two decades ago, STANY, the Security Traders Association’s biggest chapter, had about 2,000 members. Recently, it dropped to about 700. Now, it’s back up to 800, he says.
“The industry as a whole has lost many participants, but we have definitely stemmed that tide,” Armstrong said.
Despite the membership losses owing to trading volume declines and the prevalence of electronic markets, Armstrong believes STANY can still be a vital organization.
How?
“By continuing to have outstanding content at our conferences. The last two years you have seen a vast improvement in the content that has been available. These are must-attend events,” Armstrong said. He believes STANY should take a big-picture, or macro approach to examining markets.
“We plan to highlight this issue at STANY’s annual conference on April 25,” he said. “The conference will be titled ‘Our Financial Markets: Where Shall the Pendulum Swing?'”
The conference had a session on macro market structure, as well as sessions on exchanges and rules changes. It will include officials from BATS Global Markets, UBS and Nasdaq OMX Group, Armstrong says.
“We’re also going to have a Canadian panel,” Armstrong said. “We’re going to talk about how Canada has changed its rules set to attack high-frequency trading and dark pools, and what effect that has on their marketplace.”
