US equity markets are always touted as the poster child for electronic trading, but our most recent electronic trading study results (see chart below) prove that view is somewhat misguided.  Driven primarily by new rules requiring index CDS...

First of all, let’s give a nice round of applause to all market participants on Monday.  And by nice I mean more like the warmhearted ovation from a "filmed before a live studio audience" sitcom as opposed to a genial, drops-a-2-footer-for...

Some quick thoughts on market structure as we head into today's sell off: 1) Volumes sure to be 12-15 billion if not higher. Can our venues truly handle this volatility/flow? 2) For years, we have been told about venue stress testing. Let's...

As MiFID II turns up the pressure on the delineation of payment for research versus execution, institutional investors may soon increase their attention on brokerage services that materially enhance multiple aspect of their execution process....

The extended discussion surrounding the NYSE outage from last Wednesday seems your typical case of rubbernecking.  Maybe it's wishful thinking that this event will fit neatly with the Flash Boys script, painting the US equity markets in...

A move by the European regulators to “unbundle” payments for research from commissions paid on equity trades will have potentially significant and negative consequences for both the buy side and sell side.  The European Commission is preparing...

Our recent report, “Equity Trade Commissions: Rates Vary Broadly Across and Within Markets,” highlighted an interesting finding from a Greenwich Associates study: average bundled commission rates on equity trades are surprisingly consistent across...

Larger institutions in Japan now execute only roughly 41% of trades as traditional single stock high-touch trades, well down from 48% in 2011. This reflects low touch single stock trades rising from 33% of trading volume to 36% and an expected 40%...

Institutions in Asia are executing a steadily increasing proportion of business on a low-touch basis (algorithms, DMA, crossing, portfolio trades) as opposed to traditional high-touch business executed through a broker sales trader. These same...

The European Commission, ESMA and the FCA appear to be including fixed income in new payment for research requirements in MiFID II and EMiR by not explicitly excluding fixed income research. The question is whether a service can be viewed as an...