*Matthew DiBiase and Michael Racaniello joined Morgan Lewis Githens & Ahn to trade equity and convertible securities. DiBiase, a 20-year veteran was responsible for all trading at Southcoast Capital. He also traded for two hedge funds, Caxton Corp. and Craig Drill Capital. Racaniello spent the last year as a senior Nasdaq trader at BrokerageAmerica. He has also worked for Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. as a trader.
*Lee Korins, the STA's former president and chief executive, joined the world of academia. He was named Monfort Executive Professor of Finance at the University of Northern Colorado where he will teach a seminar on investment.
*BrokerageAmerica hired a team of sales traders and Nasdaq market makers for its New York headquarters and offices in Boston, Denver and San Francisco. Jerry Cucinella, Angeline Garcia, Lauren Holden, Matthew Modica, Joseph Naidrich, Colleen Olifiers, Mike Weber joined the sales trading group in New York. Wade Diebner joins the San Francisco office. Robert Canavan joins the Boston office. Willie Walters joins the Denver office. On the market making side are: Craig Campbell; Kerry Doxey; Salvatore Iannaci; Jeffrey Malfetti; Michael Mason; Joseph Matura; Joshua Moor; Joseph Paccione; and Eugene Waxman.
*Chandler Paris joined trading systems vendor Lava Trading, Inc. as a senior business analyst. Paris was previously with C.E. Unterberg Towbin where his responsibilities included all aspects of trading technology. Paris spent most of his career as a market maker with Montgomery Securities.
*Peter Kearney joined Institutional Direct, as a managing director of direct access trading. Kearney, a 25 year Street vet with experience at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, CS First Boston and Kidder Peabody, joins a team of eight sales traders and five brokers and will report to Stephen Murphy, IDI's floor supervisor.
*The International Securities Exchange nabbed Steve Sears from the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and named him director of special projects. Sears, a former columnist for Dow Jones Newswires, was senior adviser to Sandy Frucher at the Philadelphia exchange.
*Michael Palazzi joined SG Cowen as a managing director and head of Nasdaq trading. Palazzi replaces Jim Raphalian who joined Schwab Capital Markets earlier this year. Palazzi comes from CIBC World Markets where he recently headed up the Nasdaq desk.
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Glen Callen was named senior vice president and head of cash equity trading at Knight Trading Group. He was previously managing director and trading manager at Merrill Lynch.
*Jerry Lehman was appointed senior vice president and head of technology at Thomson Financial's Investment Management Group. Lehman comes from Microsoft Corp. where he was chief technologist in capital markets.
*Four of the trading community's top veterans formed a transatlantic consultant firm. Efficient Frontiers, which is based in London, is run by former Instinet CEO, Doug Atkin, Benn Steil (inset) of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Kilsby, former CEO of Tradepoint, and John Woodman, the former COO of Knight Securities. The new firm, which runs an office in New York, will advise buyside and sellside firms in areas such as market structure and technology.
*At the Securities and Exchange Commission, Alden Atkins was named associate director of market regulation. Atkins, who joins from the National Association of Securities Dealers, replaces Brenda Blaine who recently left the SEC.
