Market Structure Insights
January 16, 2013
“Nobody seems to care about the issuers.” That short sentence in an email from an investor-relations officer recently reflects what many in our profession feel about share-ownership and trading data for public companies. Back in March 2011, we decided to do something. You old-timers here...
January 9, 2013
What surprised me most was how twice as many people knew “high-frequency trading” compared to “dark pools.” The Nasdaq’s Mike Sokoll, Liquidnet’s Nicole Olson and I kicked off a session on how equity markets work at NIRI’s conference on IR fundamentals in Santa Monica yesterday....
January 2, 2013
Happy New Year! Boy, where to begin. With the Fiscal Cliff arrayed theatrically as the curtain rises on 2013, it’s a crapshoot picking what to write in the program notes. So we’ll take aggressive short sellers. No, we don’t mean market Sentiment favors shorts. As...
December 19, 2012
No, our title does not refer to Surveillance. Despite the Thomson/Nasdaq deal last week. Yesterday mavens of equity markets converged on Capitol Hill to debate trading woes. Apparently the Senate, unsatisfied with just one geological trope (“Fiscal Cliff”), must examine “Dark Pools.” If you missed...
December 12, 2012
Why don’t trading and ownership match? Sometimes you must change your point of view – put on the Magic Market Structure Spectacles – to see the truth. Say twenty-five institutions own 75% of your shares. From one month to the next there is little change...
December 5, 2012
CNBC has a Fiscal Cliff countdown clock. You can’t click a TV remote or a web page without somebody declaring that Congress’s inability to compromise on tax rates and spending cuts before December 31 will incinerate equities. It’s predicated on sound logic. Higher taxes on...