Market Structure Insights

September 5, 2012

Volcker would be a great name for a shred-metal band. It seems vaguely gothic and you can picture musicians in leather with guitars and tattoos. Maybe colored hair. Alas, no. The Volcker Rule is no band. But it’s prompting musical chairs that may rock IR....

August 29, 2012

Define irony. Alanis Morrissette called things ironic in song and was criticized for the apparent absence of irony in her verse. So is it ironic, or instead coincidental or paradoxical, that the SEC may consider speeding up information by removing the quiet period around IPOs...

August 22, 2012

The equity market is like Bourbon Street. No, we don’t mean the stock market is home to “Big Daddy’s World Famous Love Acts.” We mean it’s a bit off, a party, somewhat wanton, full of folks in disguise doing things they wouldn’t do anywhere else....

August 15, 2012

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...

August 8, 2012

Some were forced to do it themselves. In the wake of Knight Capital’s technology glitch – if you missed it, a linchpin in trading markets was nearly undone Aug 1 by faulty trading software – some brokers who normally route order flow to Knight for...

August 1, 2012

Do you hate day traders? Reading the 30-page Waiver and Consent letter from Peter Beck, who once ran now-defunct day-trading firm Swift Trade, it seems FINRA must. Maybe you do too. But there’s a lesson in the story here, IR folks. If you missed it,...

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