Boo!

What a Halloween week. To our many friends, clients and colleagues on the Atlantic seaboard assailed by Hurricane Sandy, we in Denver are rushing sunshine your direction.

Exchanges are hoping for sunshine too as trading resumes. It hinges on opening auctions. That gives us the creepy-crawlies, as though black cats were crisscrossing ahead as we ducked from ladder to ladder to avoid the falling sky.

Why? BATS Exchange saw its IPO torpedoed when the opening auction went awry. Flaws in the Facebook opening auction at the Nasdaq delayed quotes, and the fiasco lingers in recriminations and lawsuits. Knight Capital Group had bad software derail an algorithm hitting opening auctions.

We should note “closing auctions” too, since trading days begin and end with them. Some, like the Nasdaq, call them the opening and closing “cross” – not as though it’s catechism but because of what happens.

As Sandy stomped through Long Island Sound, the big equity exchanges including NYSE, Nasdaq, Direct Edge and BATS, were plotting how to get a good auction going today to restart markets dormant since Friday.

Now, stay with me. We have one aim: To explain why the Halloween auction is vital – and risky – and why auctions are both linchpins to price-discovery and the market’s Achilles Heel. Continue reading →

If our stock reverts to the mean, I don’t see that high-frequency trading matters.

I’m paraphrasing what many CEOs and CFOs believe. The market is complicated. There’s volatility. Trading is global. ETFs and derivatives probably affect volume. But I’m trading at a reasonable multiple of forward earnings, so who cares?

I hear that question sometimes. More often, reporters tell me they hear it from CEOs and CFOs. What difference does it make that 60% of my volume is the same shares trading over and over? So we had 7,800 public companies in the Wilshire 5000 in 1997 and now there are 3,600 in it. My stock trades at 16 times earnings. That’s about right.

So long as my house goes up in value, what do I care that people are getting these really ridiculous variable-rate, no-money-down mortgages for 125% of the home’s value, which means they’re financing the furniture over 30 years? What difference does it make to me? My house is still up 15% in value.

According to the ETF Industry Association, at July 2012 there were 1,486 exchange-traded products (ETPs), up from zero about 15 years ago, give or take, and fast approaching one ETP for every two stocks. The industry had net July inflows of $17.1 billion, mostly to equity ETFs. Continue reading →

It was 85 degrees Sunday in Denver when Karen and I rode up local landmark Lookout Mountain on bikes to pay respects at Buffalo Bill’s grave. We woke to snow Tuesday.

Speaking of hot and cold, we told clients to expect a good start Monday for the new quarter, followed by the strong likelihood of a big move Tuesday or Wednesday as imbalances from the quarter exited broker-dealers. The Dow was down more than 100 points intraday Tuesday.

Why are these outcomes predictable?

In answer, ever heard of Mexican film maker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga? The duo sadly parted ways after making Babel (Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett), the third film following Amores Perros (Benicio del Toro) and 21 Grams (Naomi Watts, Sean Penn) with disparate threads woven into haunting themes on life and meaning.

Markets have recently given us disparate threads that can be loomed into predictive thematic raiment. Rumblings continue about the dramatic BATS Exchange IPO debacle March 23. The market-structure bugs at Zero Hedge advanced a theory that a deliberate algorithmic tactic torpedoed the IPO. Continue reading →

Happy New Year! If the holidays this year seemed sweeter, the air more welcome to the well-caroled note, it’s probably because I’ve been quiet for two straight weeks.

And with good reason. The lovely KQ and I winged southward with fellow wayfarers for time over the keel on the cayes and reefs of Belize. At Queens Cayes east off Placencia past the wildlife preserve at Laughing Bird Caye, we found what one friend called “your own Corona commercial.” As the sun faded toward dusk there, we caught this grand view of our boats on Dec 11. Our companions below the surface included this delightful fellow, a spotted eagle ray. The Eagle Ray Club is a good name for a rock band. Continue reading →

Don’t pass Go.  I will give $200 to the first person who correctly answers two questions.

Only corporate IROs may answer. Apologies to the rest, but you’ll see why. Corporate IR pros, look up and write down your trading volume on March 4. First question: Where did your shares trade?

Second question: Which brokers executed the trades that, when added up, equaled that volume you wrote down for March 4?

Yesterday, Dow Jones reporter Jacob Bunge wrote about our drive to organize companies to petition Congress and regulators for more transparent data about their share-trading.

There’s a landing page on our website for the letter we’ve drafted. Our goal is to list 100 companies as supporters when we deliver this letter. It should be 5,500. I’ll tell you why in a moment. Continue reading →