From a fund type perspective, it should come as no surprise that hedge funds - nearly 90% of those in our study - use derivatives, above the roughly 60% of asset managers that do the same.  Their leveraged approach to investing coupled with...

I can’t say I was ever really a fan of Joan Armatrading, but her 1983 hit “Drop the Pilot” comes to mind following the Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee’s (EMSAC) recommendation for an Access Fee Pilot Program. Maker-taker pricing refers...

In my first blog post on the evolving blockchain technology landscape I wrote about how, following the hype of 2015, this year would see technology companies and financial services firms explore different ways to use the blockchain technology in...

Richard Johnson, Greenwich Associates vice president of market structure and technology, discusses the results of the firm's survey of 256 buy-side traders around the world. He speaks with Bloomberg's Alix Steel on Bloomberg Markets. Bloomberg...

An important, but little understood feature of US market structure is the operation of National Market System (NMS) Plans. NMS Plans came about through the 1975 Amendments to the Securities and Exchange Act, and essentially provide a mechanism for...

The biggest FinTech story of last week was the announcement that not only had Digital Asset Holdings (DAH)  raised $52mm in funding, but had also secured a strategic contract to develop distributed ledger (blockchain) settlement solutions for...

There has been plenty of talk amongst the industry about the MiFID II rules aimed at bringing more transparency to dark pool trading venues across Europe.  Regulators claim the lack of transparency and details around transactions is dangerous...

Equity trading trails the technological progress made in other industries. Although today’s US equity market structure is more complex, nuanced, and competitive than any other asset class, one could argue that the electronic tools offered traders...

Despite the recent wild gyrations in global stock markets, 2015 could represent the calm before the storm for European equity brokers, which are awaiting word from regulators on new “unbundling” rules that could upend the economics of their business...

ConvergEx announced last week that it was euthanizing one of its two dark pools, VortEx. In the grand scheme of the equities market, this was hardly a headline grabber.   In this day and age where ATSs seem so similar, many sporting names...