I like your analogy of the Sunday store openings, PW. Makes a good point.
I have to wonder, though, what would have happened when the stores opened on Sunday on the internet. Similarly, I wonder if people coming home from work and checking their portfolios might want to adjust a position right then instead of waiting for the next business day; maybe folks in Hawaii or points west (even into the Asian countries) would rather not try to deal with the American market at "oh dark thirty" their time.
If the various brokers and MMs put their less qualified people on the off hour shifts, it seems to me that will just make that much more opportunity for the ECNs to garner business. And, that's what I am really looking foreward to -- more ECNs and access to them, and less interference by MMs and Specialists. Like John Henry, people- intensive jobs are all candidates for automation. If we start out by reduced liquidity and 1/4 or 1/2 point spreads instead of teenths and eigths, that's ok by me -- on an ECN system, it will mean one party or the other will benefit from the larger spread, not the insider.
But, I haven't thought this all the way through. And, there is always the "law of unintended consequences" to deal with. We'll see how it all works out. In the meantime, change is good!
jim |
