Market Structure Insights

October 4, 2011

In politics, Bill Clinton perfected the “trial balloon.” You float an idea of one shade because you’re planning on getting people to embrace an idea of another larger construct. In fiction writing, authors will create portent by ending a chapter with something like: “She could...

September 27, 2011

Isaac Newton posited 334 years ago in his third law of motion that mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal. I wonder what he’d think of the relationship between the US dollar and equities, where this small action produces that decidedly...

September 20, 2011

If you absolutely must have trading data fast, who’s your huckleberry? Burstream, apparently. The firm claims it can serve up actionable, meaningful trading data, no matter what market mayhem, in 600 nanoseconds. That’s 600 billionths of a second. The catch? You have to trade at...

September 13, 2011

We were sitting on the porch in the shadow of the American flag Sunday September 11 when fighter jets streaked and thundered so low that all of Denver shook. We caught glimpses of pairs of F-15s and F-16s, afterburners hot. Later, we read that warplanes...

September 6, 2011

When investors buy and sell shares, what happens? The logical answer is “stocks go up and down.” Let’s get more specific. Among the 20 largest asset managers at the end of 2009, ten were bank-owned, says consulting firm Towers Watson. The five largest – Blackrock,...

August 30, 2011

While Irene splashed Wall Street, we Coloradans reveled in the ridden glory of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. The 500-mile route hosted 130 of the world’s top cyclists including Tour de France winner Cadel Evans and both runners-up, Luxembourgers Andy and Frank Schleck. We were...

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