Securities Industry News articles from October 2006

Securities Industry News archives from October 2006

One More Liquidity Pool, and a LiquidityBook': Major Firms Get Behind ATS for 2007 Launch.(alternative trading system)(Citigroup Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.,Merrill Lynch and Company Inc.)
October 2, 2006... Six leading Wall Street brokerage firms announced last week that they are forming Block Interest Discovery Service (Bids), an alternative trading system (ATS) that will inject one more variable into the increasingly crowded and competitive...

One More Liquidity Pool, and a LiquidityBook': IM Trading Tool From N.Y.-Area Brokerage.
October 2, 2006... LiquidityBook, a year-old service that facilitates execution of U.S. equity and equity options trades via instant messaging (IM), is gaining traction on Wall Street. It says it has signed six broker-dealers that trade on the floor of the New...

In NYSE-Euronext Merger, Uncertainty Looms Over Siac.
October 2, 2006... The Securities Industry Automation Corp. (Siac), the technology joint venture of the New York Stock Exchange and American Stock Exchange, finds itself in a continuing cost-cutting mode ahead of NYSE's planned merger with Euronext, according to...

Tallying Trades: NASD's Call for Accuracy Extends to Bonds.(National Association of Securities Dealers)
October 2, 2006... Following investor complaints questioning the veracity of trading volumes that brokerages claim in their marketing materials, the National Association of Securities Dealers issued a notice last month reminding dealers of "their obligation to...

IBM Messaging Platform Gets Real-Time Remake.(IBM Corp.)
October 2, 2006... Hoping to tap into the explosive growth of instant messaging (IM), IBM Corp. has begun promoting an upgraded version of its Lotus Sametime software to Wall Street, beginning with an event last month in New York that it billed as "Real-Time,...

CDS, One Year Later.(credit default swap )(Brief article)
October 2, 2006... Sept. 15 was the anniversary of a fateful meeting at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where U.S. and European regulators admonished executives from 14 top dealers to clear away mounting backlogs of credit default swap (CDS) confirmations....

Portfolio Margining.(Brief article)
October 2, 2006... The New York Stock Exchange has submitted a proposal to expand portfolio margining, a move that will dramatically reduce investors' collateral requirements. NYSE's mid-September submission, broadening the range of instruments covered, followed...

MiFID Anxiety?(Markets in Financial Instruments Directive )(Brief article)
October 2, 2006... The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), with its best-execution requirements and market-structure mandates, is the biggest change hitting Europe's financial markets in more than a decade. A survey announced two weeks ago at...

Capital IQ Gets Holistic.(Brief article)
October 2, 2006... Capital IQ, a Web-based provider of financial information and analysis tools, has added credit ratings and credit-oriented research--supplied by its data partner and parent company Standard & Poor's (S&P)--to its service menu. The add-on is...

-ST_BY-.(Securities and Exchange Commission - Michael J. Halloran ; )
October 2, 2006... Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox has appointed Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman senior corporate and securities partner Michael J. Halloran as his counselor and deputy chief of staff. Head of a 250-attorney practice...

Self-protection as Regulation.
October 2, 2006... "Any fool can make a rule, but not necessarily a good one," wrote the 19th century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Today, regulators are applying that same reasoning to the hedge fund industry. "Thoughtful regulators don't want to end...

A Radical Act at the SEC?(Securities and Exchange Commission )
October 2, 2006... Sources tell Securities Industry News that Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox may be preparing the obituary for the mutual fund independent chairman rule, a centerpiece of the fund reform agenda that he inherited from...

Regulators Probing Treasury Squeezes'.(Securities and Exchange Commission )(Commodity Futures Trading Commission )
October 2, 2006... Two financial regulatory agencies are looking into whether firms have engaged in manipulative trading in the Treasury repurchase agreement (repo) and futures markets, James Clouse, deputy assistant secretary for federal finance at the U.S....

SEC Edgar Plan Puts Emphasis on XBRL Technology.(Securities and Exchange Commission)(Keane Federal Systems Inc.)(Microsoft Corp.)(Akamai Technologies Inc.)
October 2, 2006... The Securities and Exchange Commission last week announced that it awarded contracts totaling $54 million to modernize its Edgar reporting and disclosure system. With part of that amount financing development of extensible business reporting...

Venture Capitalists Zone In on Zend.(Zend Technologies)(Azure Capital Partners)(Index Ventures)(Intel Capital)
October 2, 2006... Zend Technologies, provider of an open-source competitor of the omnipresent Java programming language and Microsoft's ASP.Net language, is winning support from venture capitalists--which could be a precursor to eventual business acceptance. ...

NSX Holdings Fills Board; Rizzello Named Chairman.(National Stock Exchange )
October 2, 2006... Veteran National Stock Exchange director and former Pershing executive Joseph S. Rizzello has been elected chairman of NSX Holdings, the Chicago-based electronic exchange's parent company, which was formed as part of the demutualization of its...

Amid Globalization of Markets, Regulations Are Principled': Broadly agreed guidelines seen as more workable and flexible than rigid rules.
October 2, 2006... Technology is far from the only factor that is expanding the markets' geographic horizons. The proposed merger of the New York Stock Exchange and Euronext, plus the Nasdaq Stock Market's 25.1 percent ownership of the London Stock Exchange...

Europe's Code of Conduct: Custodians Waiting and Seeing.
October 2, 2006... The European Commission's decision to forgo legislation in favor of a semi-voluntary code of conduct to improve the efficiency and reduce the costs related to cross-border clearing and settlement brought a deep sigh of relief to exchanges and...

Tokyo Exchange Following NYSE's Regulatory Footsteps.
October 2, 2006... With a formal announcement early last month by Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) chairman and president Taizo Nishimuro, the exchange is moving to split its self-regulatory function away from its trading operations, while keeping both within a single...

Hedge Funds and Service Providers Pose Oversight Conundrum: Will an industry that grew up with few restrictions get caught in regulatory net?
October 2, 2006... In a world where a hedge fund is domiciled in the Cayman Islands, managed from New York, administered in Dublin and has investors in a multitude of jurisdictions, regulators are struggling to find the right balance of oversight to ensure...

Basel II Moves Operational Risk Into the Open.
October 2, 2006... Traditionally in the risk family hierarchy, market risk was king, credit risk was queen and operational risk was the elephant in the corner. It was always there, but nobody wanted to acknowledge it. Today operational risk has moved into the...

Asia-Pacific Region Looks to EU-Like Trade Zone: Potential financial market integration would fall short of a single currency.
October 2, 2006... Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) have recently called for establishment of a European Union-style single market by 2015, and principles of liberalized trade and investment are being endorsed across the region....

CRM Systems Get an Institutional Flavor: Where relationships are at stake, vendors don't win on technical know-how alone.(customer relationship management )
October 9, 2006... Imagine that in looking for a vendor to provide a technology solution you start with a list of 20 candidates. You whittle those names down to ten, and then three, but how do you make the final choice? Donn Lassila, CIO of Davidson...

Hedge Fund AML Mandates May Soon Be On the Way.(anti-money-laundering )
October 9, 2006... Hedge fund advisers may have gotten a reprieve in August when the Securities and Exchange Commission decided not to challenge the June appellate court ruling that struck down its hedge fund registration rule. But there's another bullet that the...

Credit Market Yields IT Boom.(information technology)
October 9, 2006... Few financial product innovations have hit the stratosphere as fast as credit derivatives--with volume doubling yearly since 2002, to a notional value of $26 trillion as of mid-year, according to the International Swaps & Derivatives...

Five Firms Form Level ATS; Field Gets More Crowded.(Citigroup Inc.)(Credit Suisse Group)(Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.)
October 9, 2006... Indicating that Wall Street is still on the hunt for an ideal mix of electronic execution choices, five prominent firms came together last week to form the Level alternative trading system (ATS). Less than a week earlier, six investment...

Measuring FX.(foreign exchange)
October 9, 2006... Daily average foreign exchange trading volumes surpassed $2 trillion last year and will hit $2.6 trillion this year on their way to $3.6 trillion in 2007, according to estimates by Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup. Electronic foreign exchange...

More Repo, Less E'.(business of Repurchase agreement)(Brief article)
October 9, 2006... Repurchase agreement (repo) contracts outstanding in Europe grew 15 percent in a year, to EUR6.02 trillion ($7.58 trillion), according to the 11th semiannual survey of the European repo market by the International Capital Market Association...

People In The News.(Fortent- Kay LaBare )(Markit Group - David Lefferts )(TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. - Assif Hirji, Larry Szczech, Bill Gerber)
October 9, 2006... TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., the brokerage company that resulted from the January merger of Ameritrade Holding and TD Waterhouse, ended its fiscal year Sept. 29 and promptly realigned its top management. In the shuffle, veteran technologist...

Milliseconds Will Matter.
October 9, 2006... It is surprising how unprepared the European financial services industry is for the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), which has been described as the biggest change since the "big bang" deregulation of the 1980s. In a recent...

MiFID and Transparency: The ICMA Weighs In.(Markets in Financial Instruments Directive )(International Capital Market Association)
October 9, 2006... With implementation of Europe's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) just over a year away, research and analysis are beginning to dispel the confusion over what multinational financial institutions have come to regard as one of...

Incapital Continues Diversifying, Anticipates a Takeoff.(Tom Ricketts)(Interview)
October 9, 2006... Improved corporate bond conditions should boost InterNotes, structured products Amid the many electronic trading innovations in fixed-income markets, corporate bonds have been sputtering. It's a reflection of recent conditions in the...

FinCEN Issues Guidance on Fund SAR Filings.
October 9, 2006... The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Treasury Department's anti-money-laundering (AML) agency, released guidance last week on mutual fund filings of suspicious activity reports (SARs) to flag suspect transactions in accounts...

Linedata Bolsters Analytical Offerings With Miletus.
October 9, 2006... Adding to its lengthy roster of brokerages--and a more select group of firms providing pre-trade analytics--Linedata Services said that it has integrated its LongView order management system (OMS) technology with New York-based agency brokerage...

Euronext.liffe Becomes a Radianz Proximity Destination.
October 9, 2006... Euronext.liffe, the international derivatives business of Paris-based Euronext, is utilizing BT Radianz's Proximity Solution to provide low-latency trading access, the companies announced last month. New York-based BT Radianz, which...

Omgeo Links to Japanese Securities Depository.
October 9, 2006... Post-trade communications network Omgeo and the Japanese Securities Depository Center (Jasdec), Japan's central securities depository, are establishing a connection between their systems to streamline the processing of Japanese domestic and...

Euroclear and Clearstream Upgrade Daytime Bridge.
October 9, 2006... Interoperability in post-trade processing is taking another step forward as Euroclear Bank and Clearstream International are improving the automated link between them, known as the daytime bridge. As of January 2007, the rival international...

BNP Paribas Steps Up U.S. Clearing Effort.
October 9, 2006... Paris-based banking giant BNP Paribas is gearing up to offer its U.S. broker-dealer's worldwide clearing capabilities to domestic and international customers. Other global financial institutions, including French rival Societe Generale, have...

Reuters-CME Forex Venture Adds Participants: More than 40 are early adopters; early '07 launch on target.
October 9, 2006... The FXMarketSpace foreign exchange marketplace, which was announced in May by co-owners Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Reuters Group, has added a second group of participants to its early adopter program (EAP), bringing the number of...

Sorice Heads Merrill-ITG Venture; Mahoney Is Bids Chief Executive.(Steven J. Sorice - Block Alert)(Block Interest Discovery Service -Timothy Mahoney)
October 9, 2006... Merrill Lynch & Co. and Investment Technology Group (ITG) said last Wednesday that Steven J. Sorice will serve as CEO of Block Alert, the joint-venture block-crossing service that they announced in April and recently began offering to clients....

New Amex Structure Gets SEC Approval.
October 9, 2006... The American Stock Exchange said that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved rules for its new hybrid trading structure, including the Auction and Electronic Market Integration (AEMI) platform for equities and exchange-traded...

AMF Issues Best Practices for Corporate Actions.(Asset Managers Forum)
October 16, 2006... One of the clearest signs yet of the securities industry's determination to clean up the processing of corporate actions emerged last week in a set of proposals from a panel of the Asset Managers Forum. The 17 best practices from AMF's...

BNY ConvergEx To Focus On Unified Platform, ATS.(Bank of New York Co. )(Eze Castle Software )(alternative trading system )
October 16, 2006... The agency brokerage and independent research businesses of Bank of New York Co. (BNY) and Eze Castle Software (ECS), the Boston-based provider of order management systems (OMS), closed their transaction earlier this month to create BNY...

Outsourcing Under Regulatory Scrutiny In U.S., Europe.
October 16, 2006... U.S. and European regulators are expected to issue rules in 2007 that will address outsourcing in the securities industry to an unprecedented degree. A proposal by NYSE Regulation that has been before the Securities and Exchange Commission...

Pressure on the Bulge Bracket: Relationships in flux as buy side insists on.
October 16, 2006... Institutional trading desks--in keeping with the general Wall Street technology climate--have been on tight budgets since the tech bubble burst in 2000, even as their profits have markedly improved. The buy side's determination to cut costs...

CME To Upgrade Hosting Services for Electronic Traders.(Chicago Mercantile Exchange )
October 16, 2006... The Chicago Mercantile Exchange will allow firms to link their collocated trading servers to CME over high-speed fiber optic connections in the fourth quarter of 2006, said the exchange. The new connectivity option, CME Local Network (LNet), is...

Thomson Using Ethics Hotline System From Allegiance.(Thomson Corp. Thomson Financial)
October 16, 2006... More than three years ago, at the height of the trading abuses that rocked the mutual fund industry, a back-office worker may have noticed something suspicious: someone on the trading floor allowing a large hedge fund to buy and sell stocks...

Swift Speaks Up.(Leonard Schrank-Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication)(Brief article)
October 16, 2006... Leonard Schrank, CEO of Swift, jokes that he always believed it would take a major operational disaster to land the Belgium-based financial industry messaging utility on the front page of the New York Times. When it happened in June, it was...

Credit Suisse Joins Bats.(Bats Trading electronic communications network )(Brief article)
October 16, 2006... Credit Suisse said last week that it acquired a minority stake in the Bats Trading electronic communications network (ECN) for terms that were not disclosed. With the deal, Credit Suisse becomes the fourth sell-side firm to invest in Bats since...

People In The News.(Theodore Gaasche joins SunGard Availability Services)(Martin Veilleux joins GlobeOp Financial Services)(Jody Meth joins Fidelity Investments )
October 16, 2006... SunGard Availability Services, an operating unit of Wayne, Pa.-based SunGard Data Systems that specializes in backup and business continuity, has appointed Theodore Gaasche group CEO. Gaasche, COO and CFO for the unit since 1999, became acting...

The Partial (80 Percent) CDS Solution.(credit default swaps )(process automation)
October 16, 2006... Firms in the over-the-counter derivatives sector have been fighting an uphill battle, to say the least, in trying to bring automated efficiencies to the burgeoning market in credit default swaps (CDS). These instruments have been doubling every...

Helping Public, Private Sectors Plan for Next Market Crisis.(George Hender- Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.)(Interview)
October 16, 2006... George Hender, management vice chairman of Options Clearing Corp. (OCC) in Chicago and president since 2004 of the Options Industry Council (OIC), took on a new role in June: He succeeded Donald Donahue, president and CEO of New York-based...

One More Addition to the Options Crowd.(Nasdaq Stock Market)
October 16, 2006... The announcement last month by the Nasdaq Stock Market that it plans to introduce an equity and index options market underscores the growing attractiveness and profitability of non-equity asset classes to an investment community that is...

Tata Gets Swift Corporate Actions Certification: Joins CheckFree, Xcitek, handful of others that are deemed SwiftReady'.(Tata Consultancy Services )
October 16, 2006... Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said that its NCS Corporate Actions software has obtained the SwiftReady label, signifying it meets standards and practices defined by the Swift financial industry messaging cooperative. Corporate action...

Sybase Introduces Speedy, More Manageable Risk Platform.
October 16, 2006... Database leader Sybase last week announced a new version of its Risk Analytics Platform that accommodates multiple market-feed and historical data sources and addresses capital markets firms' needs for real-time analytics and strategy...

SEI, Next Financial Deal May Open Up UMA Market.(SEI Investments Corp. )
October 16, 2006... SEI Investments Corp. and regional broker-dealer Next Financial Group said earlier this month that they had agreed to distribute seven of SEI's model portfolios through Next's Global Management Account (GMA). Houston-based Next introduced...

Siac CEO Brown Resigns as Cost-Cutting Continues.(chief executive officer Marianne C. Brown leaves Securities Industry Automation Corp.)
October 16, 2006... Marianne C. Brown, CEO of the Securities Industry Automation Corp. (Siac), the technology provider for the New York Stock Exchange and American Stock Exchange, has resigned and will leave her post Oct. 20, NYSE Group said last week. Brown...

Forex Automation: Algos Up Front, CLS at the Back: Barclays, BofA Offerings Indicate Algorithms Are Migrating to Currencies.
October 23, 2006... Last month, the investment banking subsidiary of Bank of America Corp. announced the pilot of its first algorithmic trading strategy for the foreign exchange market, with expanded access to liquidity on third-party platforms. BofA also added...

Foreign Currency Settlement Bank Pondering Additional Asset Classes.(Robert Close- CLS Bank International )
October 23, 2006... Since opening four years ago, CLS Bank International has pretty much accomplished its mission of reducing risk in foreign exchange settlement. To be precise, in the view of Robert Close, CEO of the New York bank and its London-based parent, CLS...

CME Trading Floor Won't Survive CBOT Merger.(Chicago Mercantile Exchange)(Chicago Board of Trade)
October 23, 2006... As volumes on Globex, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's (CME) electronic trading platform and global growth engine, soared over the past several years, exchange executives faced an inevitable and insistent barrage of questions about how long...

FIX Is Out With First Whole' Upgrade Since 1996 Version.(FIX Protocol Ltd.)
October 23, 2006... FIX Protocol Ltd. (FPL) has issued version 5.0 of the buy-side-to-sell-side communications standard that it governs, the financial information exchange protocol. It's the first new release since version 4.4 in 2003, and the first whole-number...

-ST_BY-.
October 23, 2006... (c) 2006 Securities Industry News and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.securitiesindustry.com http://www.sourcemedia.com

Amex Veteran Harris Heading New CBOE Stock Exchange.(David Harris joins Chicago Board Options Exchange )
October 23, 2006... The Chicago Board Options Exchange has appointed American Stock Exchange veteran David Harris as executive director of CBOE Stock Exchange (CBSX), the equities-market offshoot that was announced this summer. CBSX is backed by Interactive...

Redemption Rule Eased.(Securities and Exchange Commission )
October 23, 2006... Addressing mutual fund industry complaints about a new rule designed to stem market timing, the Securities and Exchange Commission has amended its Rule 22c-2, easing some requirements and extending compliance deadlines. First proposed...

Capital IQ Adds Database.(Brief article)
October 23, 2006... Capital IQ is enhancing its financial database with shareholder information on 35,000 public companies around the world. A spokesperson for Capital IQ parent Standard & Poor's described the universe as essentially all "meaningful public...

People in The News.(Patrick B. Gonzalez and Joseph P. Bauman joins Athilon Group Holdings)(John Fricke joins Financial Services Technology Consortium)(Matthew Frymier joins FXall )
October 23, 2006... Athilon Group Holdings of New York, a pioneering, AAA-rated provider of credit protection to commercial and investment banks, insurance companies and others in the structured credit market, has named Patrick B. Gonzalez CEO and director....

A Framework That Works.(Marc Lackritz - Securities Industry Association)
October 23, 2006... Reviewing regulatory proposals in congressional testimony, Securities Industry Association president Marc Lackritz praised regulators for the way they had gone about defining large, diversified financial institutions as "consolidated supervised...

Regulating Hedge Funds: A View From the U.K.
October 23, 2006... In a speech Sept. 21 to a meeting in Shanghai sponsored by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (Iosco), Hector Sants, the U.K. Financial Services Authority's (FSA) managing director of wholesale and institutional markets,...

STP Is Lagging in Europe--Especially in Derivatives: Banks, asset managers embrace concept but commitments fall short, survey finds.(straight-through processing )
October 23, 2006... European securities firms are not paying enough attention--or spending enough money--on straight-through processing (STP), according to a study by Boston-based research firm Celent, based on a survey of 80 representatives of banks, asset...

Fidessa Unveils Sell-Side Algorithm.(Royalblue Group PLC)
October 23, 2006... Trade execution vendor royalblue announced an algorithm for its Fidessa equities trading platform. One version of the BlueBox algorithm will give sell-side traders standard benchmark strategies such as volume-weighted average price,...

Boston Exchange Names Citigroup's Richardson President.(C. Thomas Richardson joins Boston Equities Exchange )
October 23, 2006... The Boston Equities Exchange (BeX), an all-electronic stock market backed by five major Wall Street firms and the Boston Stock Exchange (BSE), appointed Citigroup executive C. Thomas Richardson as president. He will officially step into the...

As Hedge Funds Invest in Pipes, SEC Steps Up Scrutiny.
October 23, 2006... Transactions known as Pipes, or private investments in public equity, are rapidly developing into a new front in the Securities and Exchange Commission's campaign to bring hedge funds under the same rules as securities firms and traditional...

FinCEN Faces Obstacles to Collecting Cross-Border Data.(Financial Crimes Enforcement Network )
October 23, 2006... Under a plan being drawn up by the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), securities firms will have to record and report cross-border wire transfers in order to comply with the federal government's...

Omgeo Looks To Expand Under New Leadership.
October 30, 2006... The appointment of a new chief executive can reflect or signal many things, foremost among them a change in style or direction, and Marianne C. Brown's move from the New York Stock Exchange subsidiary Securities Industry Automation Corp. (Siac)...

New Federal Rules Put Premium on E-discovery Systems.
October 30, 2006... Changes to the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, effective Dec. 1, are spurring a new generation of electronic discovery solutions as companies face a mandate to have systems in place to manage all digital information throughout the...

RBC Buys High-Tech Boutique: Carlin Financial provides execution boost.
October 30, 2006... RBC Capital Markets, the corporate and investment banking arm of Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada, is the latest securities firm to buy its way into advanced trading technology development. The company agreed last week to acquire the...

Broker, in Challenge to Oats Reporting, Raises Questions About SRO Processes.(Order Audit Trail System)(Lek Securities Corp. )(National Association of Securities Dealers )(self-regulatory organization )
October 30, 2006... Rather than paying a $20,000 fine to settle alleged violations of Order Audit Trail System (Oats) reporting requirements, Lek Securities Corp. contested the National Association of Securities Dealers charges at an Oct. 25-Oct. 26 hearing in...

Cusip Service Bureau Offering Free New-Issue Alerts.
October 30, 2006... Standard & Poor's Corp.'s Cusip Service Bureau, administrator of the numbering system for identifying securities and their issuers, is announcing today that it will deliver newly issued Cusip numbers free of charge starting in December. ...

BOX Appoints Goldman Vet CEO: Morris is latest to fill an opening in new wave of start-up marketplaces.(Boston Options Exchange )
October 30, 2006... The all-electronic Boston Options Exchange (BOX), launched two years ago and now upgrading its technology to prepare for penny-increment options trading, has appointed quantitative trading expert R. Scott Morris to its newly created CEO...

Enter Alex.(Deutsche Borse AG in alliance with SWX Swiss Exchange formed a new stock exchange Alex)
October 30, 2006... The evolution of Europe's stock exchanges--and where Deutsche Borse will end up, when and if they consolidate--is up in the air. But the Frankfurt-based market operator isn't paralyzed by uncertainty. Last week it joined with SWX Group, parent...

Primary Dealers Called In.(Editorial)
October 30, 2006... Regulators' inquiries into possible price manipulation in Treasury securities will take a serious turn Nov. 6, when the 22 firms that serve as primary dealers attend a meeting at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They will be asked about...

Penny Options Today.(Brief article)
October 30, 2006... The U.S. options exchanges are on course to pilot penny pricing--a reform of the conventional 5- and 10-cent increments--in January. Online brokerage optionsXpress said last week that it was ready to go with penny pricing on options spreads,...

People In The News.(ADP Brokerage Services Group - Jeffrey Smith)(Fortent- William H. Janeway, Rich Green )
October 30, 2006... ADP Brokerage Services Group said that Jeffrey Smith, who has more than 30 years of experience in domestic and international operations and treasury management, has joined as managing director of global relationship management. The New...

Regulatory Costs and Benefits.
October 30, 2006... Financial institution executives who complain about the mounting costs and operational burdens of regulation--the Securities Industry Association has estimated that its sector's compliance costs rose from $13 billion in 2002 to $25 billion in...