Axiom Capital Management, a New York brokerage serving individuals and institutions, hired three former Pulse Trading equity traders. Joining are Hal Smolanoff as head of equity trading, Ethan Vickery, and Grant Rosenblum. Smolanoff was previously with State Street Global Markets, a firm he joined after it acquired Pulse Trading in 2011. Smolanoff was one of the original members of Pulse’s New York team. Vickery also joined from State Street. Vickery spent about eight years at Pulse and State Street. Rosenblum joined from Global Arena Capital Corp., a retail brokerage. He also spent nearly two years at Pulse.
Veteran market making executive Ed Coughlin joined the execution services department of Nasdaq OMX Group, where he has responsibility for the exchange operator’s cash equities and options markets. Coughlin spent 17 years at wholesaler Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities until that firm shut down in 2009. He then spent the next two years at Surge Trading as head of automated market making.
Sean Maloney joined Alabama’s Sterne, Agee & Leach in the firm’s Boston office as a sales trader. Maloney previously held a similar position at Knight Capital Group for 10 years.
Electronic trading veteran Stephen Blatney joined bond brokers KGS Alpha in New York as an equity trading executive. Blatney was most recently with PE Source, a joint venture between private shares research shop Greencrest Capital Management and Knight Capital Group. Before that Blatney spent four years as head of electronic trading at now-defunct Thomas Weisel Partners.
Industry veteran Steven Lewis joined Waddell & Reed as a financial advisor in one of the investment management firm’s suburban Salt Lake City offices. He also sells insurance for various firms. Lewis was previously a sales trader in New York for about 15 years at SEB Enskilda. He began his career as a market maker in Australian stocks at the London Stock Exchange in 1972.
