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To: Morpher who wrote (8295)	6/14/2000 1:57:00 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12617

Brokerages Shuffle Desks as Trading Shifts: Taking Stock New York, June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Salomon Smith Barney Inc. isn't waiting for the walls that separate trading of Nasdaq Stock Market stocks from New York Stock Exchange shares to come down. The firm is tearing them down itself. In their 500-seat, third-floor trading room on Greenwich Street in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, some traders at the fifth-largest U.S. brokerage changed seats over the weekend as the firm re-arranges its stock and derivatives desks into groups based on the industry of the stocks they trade. That's a shift away from the traditional method at most brokerages of arranging traders by the market on which a company's shares change hands. ``We aim to put semiconductor traders by semiconductor traders,'' said Ciaran O'Kelly, named last week to oversee the firm's trading in the U.S., a new position for Salomon Smith Barney, a unit of Citigroup Inc. ``It doesn't matter if a stock is trading on Nasdaq or listed on the NYSE.'' Distinctions such as which market a stock trades on or where a company is based are being rendered less meaningful as electronic trading grows and investors increasingly look around the world for stocks to buy. Thus, O'Kelly in his new position will oversee U.S. trading of all stocks, whether the companies are based here or abroad. Other brokerages are taking similar steps. Credit Suisse First Boston Inc. now seats its traders of global technology and telecommunications stocks together, traders said. Goldman, Sachs & Co. began in January merging Nasdaq and listed trading into one U.S. group formed around five industries, a spokeswoman for the No. 4 investment bank said. The five groups are: technology, communications, financial, consumer products, and health and biotechnology, the spokeswoman said. `Reorienting' Merrill Lynch & Co., the biggest U.S. securities firm by capital, said it finished its first round of reorganization about two weeks ago. ``We moved the (technology) traders and reconfigured the seats and departments on the trading floor'' said Jonathan Humphreys, a Merrill spokesman. ``I walk in and have to reorient myself every time.'' Humphreys said the firm now is considering reconfiguring traders of financial and biotechnology stocks in the same way. Firms are making the changes as the differences between the Big Board and the Nasdaq, and between U.S. and non-U.S. companies, begin to blur. Nasdaq this week said three electronic trading systems -- including Bloomberg Tradebook LLC, owned by the parent of Bloomberg News -- will join the network it runs for trading NYSE stocks. The network, called the Intermarket Trading System, electronically links the U.S. stock markets so specialists and dealers can route orders for stocks listed on the Big Board. Nasdaq also is in talks with nine other electronic networks about joining Nasdaq's system. Barriers `Falling' ``All the barriers are falling and electronic trading is bringing them down,'' said Louis Navellier, president of Navellier & Associates Inc. in Reno, Nevada, which uses electronic trading networks to trade its $6 billion in stock investments. The NYSE last week said it's discussing with seven other exchanges around the world a global exchange that would be open 24 hours a day and allow investors to trade shares of 1,000 stocks. Already 392 non-U.S. companies are listed on the NYSE and 458 trade on the Nasdaq. The Big Board and Nasdaq held talks to merge last year, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt has asked the industry to consider centralizing the market to make policing easier and to give investors access to the best prices. Grouping traders together by industry group will allow the firm to make the transition to a more unified market, said O'Kelly, who traded exchanged-listed technology stocks for Salomon Smith Barney before serving as co-chief of listed trading. ``A hybrid (market) will emerge, one that will combine elements of the Nasdaq negotiated dealer market and the NYSE open- outcry auction market,'' O'Kelly said. ``The move to sector trading will assist in making the inevitable transition.'' ¸ Copyright 2000, Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved.