The Quality Of Our Financial Markets

The structure and operations of the US equity markets have evolved dramatically in recent decades with the advent of major technology and regulatory changes. Nothing short of a groundbreaking shift has occurred in the securities industry as the transition has been made from predominantly manual, human intermediated trading to predominantly electronic trading. By many measures, commission, spreads and market impact costs have been dramatically reduced in recent years. But does that mean that market quality has improved? That is the key question addressed in this book, titled after the Baruch College Conference, “The Quality of Our Financial Markets: Taking Stock of Where We Stand.” Featuring contributions from a distinguished panel of practitioners, academicians, and regulators, this volume offers a penetrating and timely account of the most current issues in market quality, covering such topics as high-frequency trading; the Flash Crash of May 6th, 2010; dark pools; lit pools; fragmentation; disruptive and advanced technologies. And, very significantly, it takes a close look at the impact and influence of regulation. The Zicklin School of Business Financial Markets Series presents the insights emerging from a sequence of conferences hosted by the Zicklin School at Baruch College for industry professionals, regulators, and scholars. Much more than historical documents, the transcripts from the conferences are edited for clarity, perspective and context; material and comments from subsequent interviews with the panelists and speakers are integrated for a complete thematic presentation. Each book is focused on a well delineated topic, but all deliver broader insights into the quality and efficiency of the U.S. equity markets and the dynamic forces changing them.

Volatility is very much with us in today's equity markets. Day-to-day price swings are often large and intra-day volatility elevated, especially at market openings and closings. What explains this? What does this say about the quality of our markets? Can short-period volatility be controlled by better market design and a more effective use of electronic technology? Featuring insights from an international array of prominent academics, financial markets experts, policymakers and journalists, the book addresses these and other questions concerning this timely topic. In so doing, we seek deeper knowledge of the dynamic process of price formation, and of the market structure and regulatory environment within which our markets function. The Zicklin School of Business Financial Markets Series presents the insights emerging from a sequence of conferences hosted by the Zicklin School at Baruch College for industry professionals, regulators, and scholars. Much more than historical documents, the transcripts from the conferences are edited for clarity, perspective and context; material and comments from subsequent interviews with the panelists and speakers are integrated for a complete thematic presentation. Each book is focused on a well delineated topic, but all deliver broader insights into the quality and efficiency of the U.S. equity markets and the dynamic forces changing them.

This book is based on the proceedings of a one-day conference on Market Quality, held at the Zicklin School of Business on April 30, 2002. Some of the questions addressed in this book are: How should market quality be defined, measured, monitored and improved? What is the evidence about the current state of our markets? How effective have recent innovations been? How can we better meet our investor needs?

This book explores the integrity of equity markets, addressing such issues as the exchange vs. customer perspective on price discovery and the ways market participants deal with key regulatory concerns. Do market practitioners pass the integrity test? How does “market integrity” play out globally? What is the overall veracity of the marketplace? These are some of the key questions considered in this volume from the viewpoints of traders, economists, financial market strategists and exchange representative. Titled after the Baruch College Financial Markets Conference, Market Integrity: Do Our Equity Markets Pass the Test?, this book is of interest to market practitioners, trading professionals, academics and students in the field of financial markets. The Zicklin School of Business Financial Markets Series presents the insights emerging from a sequence of conferences hosted by the Zicklin School at Baruch College for industry professionals, regulators and scholars. Much more than historical documents, the transcripts from the conferences are edited for clarity, perspective and context; material and comments from subsequent interviews with the panelists and speakers are integrated for a complete thematic presentation. Each book is focused on a well-delineated topic, but all deliver broader insights into the quality and efficiency of the U.S. equity markets and the dynamic forces changing them.

Three dominant forces worldwide are driving change today in our financial markets: competition, technology and regulation. But their collective impact in reshaping the markets, though they may be viewed individually as desirable or well-intentioned, is producing challenging results that are difficult to predict, hard to control and not easy to understand. Extreme market turbulence has underlined the key issues as much attention turns to the appropriate regulatory response. That is the backdrop for this thought-provoking book, emerging from a Baruch College Conference on equity market structure in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, and featuring contributions from an acclaimed panel of international scholars, policymakers, regulators, and industry leaders. The result presents emerging perspective and ideas that illuminate the dynamics of financial regulation today and into the future. The Zicklin School of Business Financial Markets Series presents the insights emerging from a sequence of conferences hosted by the Zicklin School at Baruch College for industry professionals, regulators, and scholars. Much more than historical documents, the transcripts from the conferences are edited for clarity, perspective and context; material and comments from subsequent interviews with the panelists and speakers are integrated for a complete thematic presentation. Each book is focused on a well delineated topic, but all deliver broader insights into the quality and efficiency of the U.S. equity markets and the dynamic forces changing them.

The financial markets industry is at the same crossroads as the automotive industry in the late 1970s. Margins are collapsing and customization is rapidly increasing. The automotive industry turned to quality and its no coincidence that in the money management industry many of the spectacular failures have been due largely to problems in quality control. The financial industry in on the verge of a quality revolution. New and old firms alike are creating new investment vehicles and new strategies that are radically changing the nature of the industry. To compete, mutual funds, hedge fund industries, banks and proprietary trading firms are being forced to quicklyy research, test and implement trade selection and execution systems. And, just as in the early stages of factory automation, quality suffers and leads to defects. Many financial firms fall short of quality, lacking processes and methodologies for proper development and evaluation of trading and investment systems. Authors Kumiega and Van Vliet present a new step-by-step methodology for such development. Their methodology (called K|V) has been presented in numerous journal articles and at academic and industry conferences and is rapidly being accepted as the preferred business process for the institutional trading and hedge fund industries for development, presentation, and evaluation of trading and investment systems. The K|V model for trading system development combines new product development, project management and software development methodologies into one robust system. After four stages, the methodology requires repeating the entire waterfall for continuous improvement. The discussion quality and its applications to the front office is presented using lessons learned by the authors after using the methodology in the real world. As a result, it is flexible and modifiable to fit various projects in finance in different types of firms. Their methodology works equally well for short-term trading systems, longer-term portfolio management or mutual fund style investment strategies as well as more sophisticated ones employing derivative instruments in hedge funds. Additionally, readers will be able to quickly modify the standard K|V methodology to meet their unique needs and to quickly build other quantitatively drive applications for finance. At the beginning and the end of Quality Money Management the authors pose a key question: Are you willing to change and embrace quality for the 21st century or are willing to accept extinction? The real gem in this book is that the concepts give the reader a road map to avoid extinction. Presents a robust process engineering framework for developing and evaluating trading and investment systems Best practices along the step-by-step process will mitigate project risk, model risk, and ensure data quality Includes a quality model for backtesting and managing market risk of working systems

An in-depth look at the nature of market making and exchanges From theory to practicalities, this is a comprehensive, up-to-date handbook and reference on how markets work and the nuances of trading. It includes a CD with an interactive trading simulation. Robert A. Schwartz, PhD (New York, NY), is Marvin M. Speiser Professor of Finance and University Distinguished Professor in the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, CUNY. Reto Francioni, PhD (Zurich, Switzerland), is President and Chairman of the Board of SWX, the Swiss Stock Exchange, and former co-CEO of Consors Discount Broker AG, Nuremberg.

This book examines the complexity of trading and the creation of liquidity. Titled after the Baruch College Financial Markets Conference, Equity Market Round-Up: Proposals for Strengthening the Markets, this book explores how regulation has a clear impact on market structure and, therefore, how market structure impacts efficient trading and capital formation. The following questions are analyzed: What are the liquidity strategies for pricing and interacting? Is liquidity any more available today for an illiquid stock than it was on the floor of the exchange 20 years ago? How do we cope with the dynamics of a continuous market? How can market structure be improved? What are the effects of high frequency trading? The Zicklin School of Business Financial Markets Series presents the insights emerging from a sequence of conferences hosted by the Zicklin School at Baruch College for industry professionals, regulators, and scholars. The transcripts from the conferences are edited for clarity, perspective and context; material and comments from subsequent interviews with the panelists and speakers are included for a complete thematic presentation. Each book is focused on a well delineated topic, but all deliver broad insights into the quality and efficiency of the U.S. equity markets and the dynamic forces that are changing them.