E-commerce - Redefining exchanges
NASDAQ let down by its own technology
Chicago's fallen giants make progress of sorts
If predictions of its demise were true, the New York Stock Exchange would have been killed off long ago. Yet it is still there, on the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street, now so busy that it is looking at expanding into other buildings downtown, for which it has received $600 million from the City of New York.
That is a decision not to be taken lightly. Getting such new premises ready could take a couple of years or more, by which time they could be irrelevant. It is similar to the dilemma faced by Liffe two years ago. Eventually the London futures exchange ditched plans for a new trading floor and moved all its contracts to an electronic platform.
There are those who would like to see that happen at the NYSE. One, Harold Bradley, senior vice-president at US asset manager American Century, is infuriated by what he calls the bucket brigade - the number of hands, often up to six, that an order must pass through to get to the counterparty on the other side.