To: LPS5 who wrote (10914 ) 12/14/2000 1:38:48 PM From: Sir Francis Drake Read Replies (1) | Respond to LPS5 - got you. I misunderstood whom you were talking about, and assumed you were talking about open access ECNs etc. Are you familiar with POSIT? Its been growing like a weed (owned by ITG), and I've been doing some research to see how it could be affected by the latest market reform proposals. I'll have to think about all this some more, as I'm not so clear on the ultimate benefit/harm to individual investors or integrity of the market that the participation or non-participation of institutional orders in the price-discovery process will have. Used to be once upon a time that institutional trading would really have the dominant impact on pricing over long periods of time (i.e. not just intraday, or a few-day time-frame), but with increasing individual trader/investor participation, more and more it has been to the benefit of the institutional players themselves to interact with the retail orderflow that has exploded over the last 4-5 years. I'm almost tempted to say: if institutions want to play in their own sandbox - let them. Many individual stocks, and even parts of the market (such as internet issues back in early 98) are now controlled by the retail trade. Funny thing is, that Knight Trading who are the biggest MM for retail orderflow are increasingly grabbing institutional business, because institutions recognize that they stand to benefit from interacting with the increasing retail orderflow. Short term, retail orderflow has pulled back with this market trouble, but as a secular trend, I think its unstoppable - more and more individuals want to control their own portfolio, pick stocks, trade etc. Anyhow, I'll give it some more thought. Thanks for the reply.
