What A Year

When we look back at 2013 with some distance and a cooler head, we might see it as the year the markets grew accustomed to the turmoil on Wall Street and beyond. In fact, with all the drama, the capital markets chugged along almost as if the outside world did not matter.

Case in point: Trading glitches grew in such frequency that the media only saved its shock and ire for when the Nasdaq stopped trading for more than three hours one day in August and its CEO was AWOL during the outage. Critics of dark pools and high-frequency trading grew more vocal in their outrage over these trading practices, but the investment firms continued to rely on them, despite suspicions that they may be getting picked off in the dark. The U.S. government shut down for more than a week and the markets roared back when politicians vowed to address budget issues, you know, later on.

In this issue of Traders Magazine-our last of the year-the editors take a look back at the top stories that shook the trading floor, and it was quite a year. We take a look the changing role of the buyside in relation to its former service provider and counterparty the sellside. As one buysider told me, the sellside is merely a technology provider these days, as broker-dealers and third-party firms are filling the sellside’s former role nicely. Other annual roundup topics include the aforementioned parade of technology glitches, one-touch trading and where all of those Knight Capital employees wound up when its firm collapsed and relaunched after being acquired by Getco.

Also in this issue we go inside Janney Capital, a sellside firm in Philadelphia, as it plans to grow in this challenging market. Executive editor Peter Chapman reveals what the industry thinks is the right order size. You’ll also find the Winter edition of our Clearing Quarterly & Directory, where we examine the reasons behind the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.’s full acquisition of Omgeo and what it means for clearing in general and the buyside in particular.

The buyside had an interesting year, to say the least. It is growing in power and making its demands heard like never before. As always, Traders Magazine will follow this topic and many others related to U.S. equities, fixed-income and options, exchanges and dark pools, and the technology used by today’s traders. We may not be able to predict the future, but we can say that 2014 should be very interesting indeed.

Traders Magazine hopes you and yours have a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Phil Albinus

@philalbinus on Twitter

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