Yes. This was the email they sent out: Since being appointed to the Securities and Exchange Commission's Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee, I have been an advocate for a new order priority for markets that grants priority to customer orders. I firmly believe that the time is right for investors to have priority over other market participants, thus restoring investor confidence and ensuring a more robust and fair market structure. In support of my stance, I authored an op-ed regarding a price-customer order priority system "Move the Markets To A Price-Customer Order Priority System," which was also published in today's edition of the Financial Times. I remain committed to doing my part to make sure the right changes are made to the current system to secure and improve equity market structure. As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback. Sincerely, Eric Noll Convergex CEO
100 stocks accounting for 80% of the trading. Average trade size 200 shares. IMO ...... That appears to be OK. Obviously the top 100 popular stocks will dominate the market. They didn't say what those numbers should be - or were in the past.
Well, that's a lot more interesting than your original post! Not a lot of people would have noticed the authorship at the bottom.
We do business with a division of ConvergEx called LiquidPoint. They benefit as a company from a healthy market and growing volumes. This all makes sense to me.
Guys, they'll use the system to mark the trades as "retail" orders. A tiered system is probably NOT what is wanted. Also, the issue with HFT is NOT speed - its fragmented exchange vs SIP quote latency arbitrage. They're literally ripping people off left and right. Beware the Trojan horse of "let's just mark who's retail/institutionals and who isn't" - because they're not about to disadvantage Citadel and friends. The market is rigged because its controlled by an inherently corrupt structure. The exchanges pander and even help enable it and the SEC does nothing of significance to prevent it.
So....how does one distinguish between an "institutional investor" and a "professional trader"? Every large HFT is also an "institution", and most major HFTs are also "market makers" at several exchanges. I suppose then that Citadel will get to choose to wear the "institutional trader" hat whenever they place their HFT trades. I wonder how that's going to work out.... Why not instead adopt some rules at the exchange/ECN level that reduce problematic behavior directly? If high-speed shenanigans are a problem, for example, then slow things down intentionally (as IEX has done), or have a minimum order resting period for orders that affect the NBBO. Instead taking the "abusive behaviors" head on, the author proposes yet another regulatory hurdle that the biggest HFT's will circumvent in a nanosecond, but that ET's small-time traders will be stuck with.
I would like to see "customer" orders take preference to broker dealer or firm orders (They do this in equity options). I'd also like to get rid of the ability to slip in front of those standing orders by doing some fraction of a penny better. If they want to provide price improvement to offset that order, make it material like half a penny rather than .000001 better.