We’re late this week due to celebrations around the anniversary of the rebellion from the Crown. We played croquet, appropriately and cheekily British we thought (no offense to our good friends and former overlords across the pond). Croquet has actual rules we learned.

Sunday, Karen and I loaded the bikes and set out with good friend Jeffrey to conquer the passage between two of Colorado’s tall “fourteeners” named Princeton and Harvard. We rode from the Arkansas Valley floor at 8,000 feet up Cottonwood Pass (which sounds like “cotton whupass”) from Buena Vista to the summit at 12,126 feet and a stunning view of the fruited plain.

Choosing a route from point A to point B had me thinking about stock trades (you do this long enough, that’ll happen to you too). Stock trades must have routes. Sometimes it happens automatically. Whether orders for shares in your stock meet their matches internally at Barclays or by dint of timing, routing, pricing and chance at Susquehanna’s dark pool, RiverCross, often is a matter of routing. Even online brokers afford ways to route trades now. Continue reading →

Why do many stock prices move intraday by 3-5% or more when price spreads are in pennies?

Before we answer, we enjoyed New Orleans last week, despite humidity that had us struggling to distinguish the surrounding atmosphere from Lake Pontchartrain.

The NIRI Southwest Regional Conference concluded with brisk canvassing of key issues, wrapping on “would you choose an IR career again?” (Unanimous yes from panelists)

Bourbon Street hopped as usual, tourists with beer in cups labeled “giant donkey,” in so many words. We heard from the bartender at Pierre Maspero’s that Continue reading →

A word on the markets: options expired last week, while swaps and counterparty agreements pegged to volatility measures lapse tomorrow. Speculation and risk management trading are high as a result. If you expect your stock to behave as though everybody buying and selling it acts on fundamentals, you’ll encounter the unexpected.

The NYSE and Charles Schumer were talking today about rules for dark pools. The NYSE is partnered with dark-pool operator Liquidnet and is building a massive high-speed trading facility in New Jersey. The Nasdaq meanwhile plans to launch an exchange next year that will give priority to orders of size, to compete with the size advantage dark-pool operators offer.

Continue reading →