To: Nanchate who wrote (2505 ) 9/2/1999 12:28:00 AM From: mst2000 Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Nanchate - Your answer is not quite right - Per today S/H Meeting, the listing and number of participants you cite is correct as a list of those "under contract" but is not correct as being "on line" now. In other words, they are lined up to use the system but not all are on line for Phase 1 of the rollout. Fred said at the meeting today that only 15 smaller floor brokers from PHLX are using the system for Phase 1, which is strictly limited to demonstrating functionality of the system. Volumes will be light throughout Phase 1 - trades are testing all aspects of the system through live executions. In Phase 2 (starting late September), most of the 85 participants you listed will go on line, increasing volume dramatically and testing the system further. Volumes should increase, but by no means to full anticipated capacity. In Phase 3, they will integrate "aggregation" into the system -- in other words, larger retail B/D's will be able to aggregate orders under 5,000 shares with other small orders internally and with other small orders from other B/D's and participants into 5,000 share blocks, thus bringing retail traffic into the system. By the end of Phase 3, all of the 85 will be up and running, and any new participants will be able to come on line. 8 or 9 of the 85 are intermediaries who will link with many other institutions (like SDS, which may ink to as many as 272 institutions, and MacGregor and S & P Securities, which were announced at the meeting today). The number of NYSE stocks trading will increase from 20 now to 300 by the end of the first quarter of 2000. After Phase 3 (ending in late November/December), they expect to introduce over a 3-6 month period Market on Close, Intraday VWAP iterations, 100 top NASDAQ stocks and more. Volumes through the end of September are utterly meaningless - this is live on line testing and little more. So far, they claim to be very happy with the system's performance.
