Article section from WSJ. This is a cut from other board, I am not vouching the validity. Hopefully true.
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I didn't immediately see any comments on the WSJ this morning .Anyone read all that?How's this for a quote?:
"Ten years ago, the U.S. had nine securities exchanges.Thanks to Reg ATS,it should theoretically have more than 20. <My note:a la Island becoming an exchange,for example>
Almost everyone agrees that would be too many,and indeed there's an argument that investors might be better off if they merged into one since it would make it easier for a buyer to find a seller.Although the NASD acquired the American Stock Exchange last year, membership politics have regularly doomed mergers between markets. THAT COULD CHANGE FAST IF THE BIG BOARD AND NASDAQ CONVERT TO FOR-PROFIT ENTITIES,POSSIBLY UNLEASHING A WAVE OF MERGERS BETWEEN MARKETPLACES AND TRADING SYSTEMS.
Jaws dropped at a March conference at New York's Baruch College when INSTINET's chief executive,Doug Atkin said,"those of you who are in ECNs,you better make money in the next few years,because it's a DEAD BUSINESS MODEL."Already,ITG and Bloomberg Tradebook LLC, an ECN owned by Bloomberg LP, are forming a super ECN to which they are trying to add partners.The Big Board hasd also explored assembling a super ECN to trade Nasdaq stocks under its own name.
Similar trends are under way in other financial markets.Traders on Chicago's futures exchanges are nervously eyeing electronic intruders.Numerous systems are cropping up to trade bonds electronically.And the expected arrival of an electronic options exchange (the ISE)was a key reason that four options exchanges tried to merge into two in the past 14 months,though they failed.
<This is just a small section of the article.Will try and post other sections,There is SO much.It is much more well written and much better researched than the recent Barron's article,IMO>
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