El Segundo Oil Refinery Breath? I guess that'd make Suess Ed McMahon.
You don't get it -- eVWAP and Optimark could not be more different. Optimark's failure or success, or the identity of its big name backers has no bearing on eVWAP. Zero. There are so many issues that bear on (and will determine) whether a technologically based ATS trading system will succeed OTHER THAN Auric Goldfinger's uninformed claim that they don't know anybody (or that nobody knows them) that you just look ignorant saying something like that. Technological innovations have rendered exchanges little more than financial and regulatory platforms from which to operate, a means to support the international interconnectivity offered by internet and telecommunications advances. A case can be made that the affiliation with PHLX is better for ATG than an association with an NASD would be for them, because PHLX's synergy with and codependence upon (rather than dominance over) ATG actually offers ATG a more opportunistic ability to avail itself of sea-change regulatory developments than a more dominant partner would offer.
You seem to think new channels of liquidity will not prove popular even if they are easy to use, inherently fair, and offer the ability to completely mask market intent at a market price. I think these systems are the direction of the future and that people who close their eyes to them will soon be on the outside looking in, instead of the other way around - something you miss completely.
And the funniest thing of all is that you are totally wrong when you say that nobody in the investment community has ever heard of ATG, and thus imply that the entire ATG story can be summed up as "they are on the outside looking in". They know a lot of big names, and vice versa. They don't advertise it, which is good business when you are trying to maintain a secure environment and protect your business methods. But look at the guests who have attended their parties. Everybody knows them, and they know everybody. A lot of people would prefer if they weren't there, and act like they don't exist, but they know who they are. Your assumption is completely ridiculous, demonstrably untrue, but its really none of your eff-ing business who they are dealing with because they don't want anybody to know, least of all the likes of you.
Your attempt to draw any adverse inferences about Ashton from a comparison with Optimark is also laughable. The two systems and approaches to trading are completely different for all of their similarities. VWAP is an easy to understand, widely accepted derivative price - the ultimate market price. VWAP trading represents 8% of the market, trading now on a time sliced basis because no system like eVWAP has heretofore existed. eVWAP offers a channel of totally anonymous liquidity, accessible internationally at the click of a mouse, totally secure from order placement to execution, offering an inherantly fair market price. If a party determines before the open that it will trade on that basis that day, they place an order. If the pre-session order doesn't match, they know before the open and act accordingly. In other words, all you need to do is decide to trade that way that day. If you can't make a match, all of your other trading options remain available to you. Thus, there is absolutely no downside in entering a VWAP order on eVWAP if you have decided to trade at the VWAP that day, even if you don't match, because if your order fails to match, you can still trade using synthetic VWAP or in any other way you choose - (sidebar: by next year, you will also be able to trade your overflow through different VWAP iterations during the day, but that is a story for another time). eVWAP is the ultimate market order. And you, Auric Goldfinger, think there will be nobody interested, nobody to provide liquidity. And you call us fools. What an ass.
Finishing with the comparison -- if you choose to place an order through Optimark, you are committing to execute a certain volume on an open ended basis (until a match is achieved) at what is basically a fancier limit order -- so you must actively give up other limit order trading alternatives. The outcome had better compare favorably to the alterative both in terms of liquidity and in terms of execution (e.g., Optimark had better beat the price you could achieve trading using specialists or MMs on a limit order or market order basis, and it had better in a timely manner before the market moves away from your order). Without internally generated liquidity available on a constant basis during the entire trading day, Optimark cannot hope to satisfy the needs of its constituency, and as a result, most orders placed on the Optimark system before this week were actually not being matched within the Optimark system (and nobody knows if their new affiliation with NASDAQ will make a difference).
With eVWAP, once you match at 9:20, the execution is set in stone -- the market's "movement" and volume through the day defines the execution price, so it cannot "move away from you". It is a perfect VWAP, calcuated over all markets. Absolutely unassailable as a VWAP execution - simply put, a more accurate VWAP does not exist. With Optimark, you are completely at the mercy of any dissonance between your limit order and the market's movement that day, within an illiquid environment to boot. So how can you make a comparison?? What idiotic things you say, Auric.
To summarize, there is no comparison. eVWAP: Easy and risk free once you decide to trade at the VWAP that day. Optimark: Complex, illiquid, and ultimately riskier to the trader.
Optimark has been operational for well over a year, and also went through an operational testing period and ramp-up at the inception of active trading. eVWAP is ramping up, and will be fully operational by January 1. Until then, you simply have no clue (nor do I for that matter) just how popular it will prove to be. But at least my attempt to predict will be based on an informed understanding of what it is these two ATS trading systems do, and what they don't do. Citing poorly researched and superficial false assumptions is no substitute for understanding Auric.
You say you are not wrong about many things - well, you are completely wrong about this one. On the details, and on the big picture.
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