From Todd Wilemon: All the feverish activity over the last several months for the debut of the new state-of-the-art NYSE Amex Options Trading Floor in the Blue Room can be summed up in two words: GO LIVE. March 2, 2009 is the day that trading goes live in the Blue Room.
To me, all of these changes -- ranging from lower latency for low-touch trading to enhanced capabilities for high-touch trading -- demonstrate that NYSE Euronext is continually looking to hone our diverse platforms to serve our diverse customer base. The global marketplace is becoming ever more competitive, and NYSE Euronext is becoming more competitive right along with it.
From Scott Cutler: Trading below a dollar used to signal impending bankruptcy -- not anymore. We believe that many companies have fallen victim to broad market moves even though they continue to have solid balance sheets, revenues and growth prospects.
From Todd Wilemon: Directed Orders help improve customer executions by providing incentives for specialists and market makers to tighten their quote spreads and increase liquidity at the NBBO. It is yet another reason that customers should come to NYSE Amex to trade.
From Jim Ross: MatchPoint also enables you to noiselessly access aggregated natural block liquidity while minimizing transaction costs.
From Scott Cutler: In what I have described as the first drip in the glacial melt of the global IPO market, Mead Johnson, a Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) carve-out, successfully debuted on the NYSE yesterday. The IPO raised $720mm, priced at the high end of its price range, and traded up during the first day of trading. Investor demand for the offering was very strong, despite the near 400-point drop in the Dow on the day of pricing.
"The consolidation of the prints...will reduce the amount of manual information to be reported by the [Designated Market Maker], thus increasing the speed and efficiency of the closing process, ultimately improving the quality of both markets with timelier reporting of closing transactions."
From Jim Ross: Liquidity aggregation, complete informational control and trade transparency all at the same time!
From Todd Wilemon: This is the biggest change for the Amex since they moved from trading on the curb to trading indoors. In the newly refurbished Blue Room (yes the walls are painted blue, hence the name), NYSE Amex Options Traders and an incredibly dedicated Exchange team have been working through the kinks getting their new place up and running for March 2 Go Live Day.
"NYSE Euronext supports the essential purposes of the Committee draft legislation: (i) enhancing the integrity of U.S. contract markets; and (ii) bringing transparency and risk reduction to the over the counter (“OTC”) derivatives markets. Nonetheless, we are concerned that the breadth of the bill may have unintended consequences. Our comments today focus on those provisions of the bill that we believe could inhibit the ability of U.S. exchanges to compete globally and deny U.S. market participants access to critical risk management products."
Last week I was in Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting -- my first time attending. Despite the prevailing economic gloom and uncertainty, I thought the global dialogue was interesting and constructive. Here are a few take-aways that may be of interest to our corporate community in the U.S. and abroad.
Perhaps Harry Markopolos lacked only an effective medium to communicate his warning. Here's a thought experiment: What would have happened if Mr. Markopolos had blogged his analysis? That is, what if he had posted the entire piece on a blog, under his name or a pseudonym?
We'll never know the answer, but here's what I think might have followed.
