Happy New Year! If the holidays this year seemed sweeter, the air more welcome to the well-caroled note, it’s probably because I’ve been quiet for two straight weeks.

And with good reason. The lovely KQ and I winged southward with fellow wayfarers for time over the keel on the cayes and reefs of Belize. At Queens Cayes east off Placencia past the wildlife preserve at Laughing Bird Caye, we found what one friend called “your own Corona commercial.” As the sun faded toward dusk there, we caught this grand view of our boats on Dec 11. Our companions below the surface included this delightful fellow, a spotted eagle ray. The Eagle Ray Club is a good name for a rock band. Continue reading →

Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. OODA.

This is how Pipeline Trading describes its predictive analytics for helping buyside customers identify large-block trading opportunities.

For those of you who missed the news that rocked The Street this week, Pipeline, a dark pool, was fined $1 million by the SEC for misleading clients about the nature of its liquidity.

Were you harmed? Check to see if your shares trade at Pipeli—

Oh. You can’t. It’s a dark pool. You don’t know if your shares trade there unless Pipeline’s orders route to your listing exchange.

Of Pipeline, SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said in a statement: “Investors are entitled to accurate information as to how their trades are executed.”

Pipeline offers a platform where institutional customers like mutual funds can find “natural liquidity,” or real orders from other buysiders. What’s more, Pipeline provides execution algorithms that mimic how high-frequency traders try to project price and volume in order to place profitable trades ahead of moves. If the buyside can beat HFT at its own game, then instead of being victimized, it can also generate alpha – market-beating returns on trades. Continue reading →

We’re back from NIRI National!

Orlando sweltered like you’d expect a swamp in central Florida in June might. We heard 1,300 were on hand, up triple digits from last year. There were new faces in the crowd and new vendor names, though big ones were absent too because exhibit costs go up while things like annual reports and total public companies decline.

We were tethered to the booth mostly but I sat in on the session about how equity markets work. Rich Barry from the NYSE, John Adam of Liquidnet, and Brian King at BATS paneled, and well. Our client Moriah Shilton at Tessera moderated like a pro.

The room was packed to standing-room-only. In the two years since I sat in Moriah’s seat on the stage, how markets work and what to do about them continues to populate the thoughts of IR folks, clearly. They streamed to the mics throughout with queries.

Karen and I nudged each other and shook our heads at this one: “How can we understand where our shares trade and for what reason?” Continue reading →

It’s a question that burns in the minds of IROs daily. No, not that one. This one: “Will an ISO post to the Nasdaq if the TIF modifier is one other than an IOC?”

Sentences like that are why alcoholism remains widespread. It’s also the reason IR folks don’t want to know how markets work. Too complicated.

Yet if we’re brutally honest, we know we should understand more. I mean, you can’t claim to be a great Yankees fan and not know the rules of baseball.

The sentence above from Nasdaq Reg NMS FAQs says: If I’ve chosen to fill my order up to the designated number of shares at a set price without leaving the Nasdaq to check for better prices elsewhere, suppose the time to complete the order is something besides “immediately or forget it.” Will that order be accepted at the Nasdaq?

This is how markets work. If you want homework, Google “Rule 611 Reg NMS.” Continue reading →

Don’t pass Go.  I will give $200 to the first person who correctly answers two questions.

Only corporate IROs may answer. Apologies to the rest, but you’ll see why. Corporate IR pros, look up and write down your trading volume on March 4. First question: Where did your shares trade?

Second question: Which brokers executed the trades that, when added up, equaled that volume you wrote down for March 4?

Yesterday, Dow Jones reporter Jacob Bunge wrote about our drive to organize companies to petition Congress and regulators for more transparent data about their share-trading.

There’s a landing page on our website for the letter we’ve drafted. Our goal is to list 100 companies as supporters when we deliver this letter. It should be 5,500. I’ll tell you why in a moment. Continue reading →