impact of Electronic Trading Technology on the Securities Markets
I’d like to shift focus a little bit and share just a few thoughts on how electronic trading technology is impacting the securities markets. In a speech I gave this summer, I identified at least four ways that electronic trading technology was transforming the securities markets.
First, electronic trading technology is cost-efficient, both in the sense that it lowers start-up costs for new systems and reduces continuing operating costs substantially. Second, electronic trading technology changes the dynamics of the marketplace by removing physical constraints such as geography and the number of participants in a market. Third, electronic trading technology has a great potential for disintermediating the markets, allowing buyers and sellers to meet directly. Finally, electronic trading technology has blurred the distinction between broker-dealers and exchanges.