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Technology Stocks : Track Data Corporation TRAC -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Investor Clouseau who wrote (691)	2/2/2000 3:15:00 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2005

"...last week I suggested to a very senior official at TRAC that they add an ECN for the OTC's. This would be much more valuable than another ECN for the listed stocks..." Absolutely absurd. One of the most sophomoric posts I've ever seen. "Another" ECN for listed stocks? Currently the only ECN that permits trading of listed stocks (exchange traded: NYSE and AMEX stocks are "listed") is Instinet. I've heard that ARCA plans to, soon, and that will be two - I believe it was mentioned in the Wall Street and Technology January edition. Do you really not know the difference between listed and OTC trading? ECN's function almost EXCLUSIVELY with the NASDAQ stock market (it's an OTC market) under SEC 17a-23. Listed volume through ECN's is currently negligible. (Hint: Look up the recently repealed NYSE Rule 390.) The NASDAQ is, by definition, an over-the-counter market. INCA, ISLD, ARCA, STRK, ATTN, REDI, BRUT, NTRD, and BTRD ALL post their best bids and offers within the main OTC equities market - NASDAQ - already. Don't expect a single ounce of resistance from any MM's or the NASD to another ECN. It's a crowded market as it is, with the business concentrated in the 3 or 4 biggest ECN's, and the bottom two or three doing miniscule volume. (Notice the consolidation as two ECN's announced their intention to merge, recently.) One more ECN - in what is already a not only accepted, but crowded, market - is not going to add another "nail into the coffin" of market makers. It would be advisable that you follow the news to see that those very entities that you think would try to "resist" a new ECN (the continuing pop villification of those "evil" market makers) are actually buying into ECN's: Goldman and Merrill (et al.) into Archipelago; a bunch having invested in REDI; and more. Why would they "resist" - let alone, "heavily," when they themselves have, with $ and words, embraced and invested in that model? LPS5