Comments on: MiFID hits Main Street

By: Ben Dyson

Ben Dyson — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:48:56 +0000

I’ve just read your latest blog with interest, and it seems to me that there is already a bit of a trend towards setting up retail-oriented off-exchange trading platforms along the lines of TOM. If I understand the model correctly, Knight Link offers a very similar proposition, allowing retail brokers to interact with Knight’s market-making flow, and Citi’s Citi Match dark pool in Europe is actively seeking to build up retail participation so it can replicate the success it has had with the US version, which was essentially started with retail orders interacting with the market-making flow of ATD.

However, both have noted that attracting flow from retail brokers is tougher in Europe than in the US. It certainly seems that US retail brokers are much more switched on than their European counterparts about the presence of alternative venues generally, as I think you found when you called your broker! Having indices that are compiled from more than just primary exchange numbers might help…

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:53:20 +0000

Hi Steve,
Good article.
I work for one of the larger Investment bank and MiFID (as well as its RegNMS counterpart) has been central to all execution policy since 2007. Although we have had enough resources to apply conceptual changes to our client’s order entry systems, our OMS, Booking and Settlement systems to comply with Best Execution models we still find little interest or knowledge from our clients – most still want to direct their orders to exchange. One interesting development is the ability for the client to instruct on smart order (best exec),algo and crossing, this may indeed drive fragmentation even further.

By: Olof (Sweden)

Olof (Sweden) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:14:21 +0000

Well, I couldn’t agree with you more – even in Sweden, which apart from high taxes, long and cold winter nights, nowadays is a mecca for retail stock investors who can legally trade shares at zero cap gains tax (YES it’s true – feel the envy those of you who stashed money at 2% around the globe in various tax schemes) – for a ridiculous commission rate. Going even further, to the blue-chips – we are doing our best to educate them about what is going on around Europe – a lot of legwork actually, but someone got to do it.