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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BWAC who wrote (22072)	3/11/2005 11:31:00 AM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95936

"Program Trading Accounts For 54% of NYSE Volume" By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter March 11, 2005; Page C6 NEW YORK -- Program trading in the week ended March 4 accounted for 54%, or an average of 917.3 million shares daily, of New York Stock Exchange volume. Brokerage firms executed an additional 671.1 million daily shares of program trading away from the NYSE, with 5.2% of the overall total on foreign markets. Program trading is the simultaneous purchase or sale of at least 15 different stocks with a total value of $1 million or more. Of the program total on the NYSE, 9.7% involved stock-index arbitrage. In this strategy, traders dart between stocks and stock-index options and futures to capture fleeting price differences. Another 0.1% involved derivative product-related strategies. Index arbitrage can be executed only in a stabilizing manner when the Dow Jones Industrial Average moves 200 points or more from its previous day's close. About 53% of program trading was executed by firms for their clients, while 43% was done for their own accounts, or principal trading. An additional 4.3% was designated as customer facilitation, in which firms use principal positions to facilitate customer trades. Of the five most-active firms overall for the week, UBS AG's UBS Securities, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Credit Suisse Group's Credit Suisse First Boston executed most of their program trading as principal for their own accounts. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executed most of their program trading activity for customers, as agent.