We marked May’s end aboard a boat on the trade winds from Norman to Anegada in the archipelago of the British Virgin Islands. It’s an indisputable jewel of that empire upon which the sun once never set.
Now, back to reality!
“Arnuk and Saluzzi, the principals of Themis Trading, have done more than anyone to explain and publicize the predation in the new stock market.”
So writes Michael Lewis in his No. 1 New York Times bestseller Flash Boys, which rocked the US stock-market community. If you’re coming to NIRI National next week in Las Vegas, put this on your calendar:
I’m moderating a fireside chat with Joe Saluzzi (regular CNBC and Bloomberg TV guest, two 60 Minutes appearances about high-frequency trading) on Tuesday June 10 at 4:10p in Bellagio 2. Click here for details. Expect insight and entertainment – and bring hard questions!
Speaking of markets, did you see that Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs released details about their dark pools? These are members-only trading venues regulated as broker-dealer Alternative Trading Systems under what’s called Reg ATS.
Credit Suisse’s Crossfinder is reputedly the world’s largest such market, which is in part due to the volume of orders that other brokers are routing to Credit Suisse. We monitor routing practices. It’s apparent to us that Credit Suisse leads in routing market-share.
Now, why do they lead? And why should you care, there in the IR chair? Because how the market for your shares functions is in the IR wheelhouse. Right? You know how your company sells products and services. How about the way your shares are bought and sold?
After all, the goal of IR boiled down to quintessence is to foster fair value in your shares and a well-informed marketplace. How do you know when that’s true?
One might say “when my shares reflect a certain multiple of the discounted present value of future cash flows.” But that measure is only true for investors measuring cash-flows. Eighty-five percent of your volume comes from forces motivated by something else.
You can’t control these but you can influence them, and measure them, and differentiate between when your active investors are setting price, and when something else is. To the degree that the prices of one are similar to the other, your market is fairly valued. It’s that simple, but you have to establish a way to measure it (we have).
Which leads back to Credit Suisse Crossfinder. In its Form ATS, the broker says it segments participants in its market into four groups.
Son of a gun. We segment the entire market into four groups, both in individual shares, and broadly, so we can see variances in these groups comparatively and by duration.
Credit Suisse calls the four groups Natural, Plus, Max and Opportunistic. The broker creates what it calls an “objective formula” predicated on a “variety of metrics” to “capture the trading behavior” of these clients.
Well. That’s exactly what we do. We think Credit Suisse is successful because it observes its clients’ behaviors and clusters similarities to improve outcomes for them. Logical stuff. I’m sure they know which behavior is dominating at any given time.
So do we, in the way we measure four behaviors ranging from natural to opportunistic. Now, why does this matter to IROs? For the same reasons. To improve behavioral outcomes. And because it’s how the market works. It’s how institutions are behaving.
I’ll probably fall short of instilling profundity, but this is on a magnitude of realizing that the earth you thought was flat is in fact round. It changes everything.
The holy grail of market intelligence isn’t knowing if Fidelity bought. It’s understanding whether the behavior of your dollar-flow is natural or opportunistic. That, my friends, is where the meaning lies.
Well, The Meaning may also be just off the coast of Virgin Gorda. Meanwhile, see you next week (booth 615) in Las Vegas!
