Profile of Ivy Schmerken

Editor at Large

Member Since: 5/8/2014
Author
Blog Posts: 2629
Posts: 638

Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad number of topics including high frequency trading, algorithmic trading strategies, market structure, electronic trading in fixed income , colocation in data centers, Dodd-Frank regulation and the new derivatives landscape. Ivy meets with software companies and other innovators and writes about cloud computing, OMS/EMSs and other financial technologies.

Articles by Ivy Schmerken
posted in May 2007

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Asian Markets Impose Restrictions on Direct Market Access Trading

5/31/2007

Goldman's SIGMA X Breaks Volume Record

5/30/2007
The race among the dark pools to top each other's volume figures is heating up. Last Friday, Goldman Sachs disclosed via email that its alternative trading system SIGMA X executed over 100 million shares on a single data, Thursday, May 25th. According to Goldman, 103 million shares were crossed and the notional value traded was $3.7 billion in 2,837 unique symbols. Average daily volume in the ATS has grown 47 percent month-to-month.

Trading Private Paper: Are New Dark Pools On the Horizon?

5/29/2007
Given the buy-side's interest in finding liquidity under the radar, here's a new twist on 'dark pools..' On Friday the Wall Street Journal reported that Goldman Sachs is creating its own private system to trade the stocks of companies that want to avoid the glare of U.S. regulation. The new system -GS TRuE- short for Goldman Sachs Tradable Unregistered Equity, made its debut last week with the sale of a

Update on BondDesk Story

5/25/2007
Since posting the story "BondDesk Gives Odd-Lot Fixed Income Marketplace an Institutional Makeover", I received a few comments disputing that BondDesk was the first ATS to focus on odd-lot executions. I am not qualified to make this judgment on my own so I'd like to share with you what folks had to say. One reader who posted a comment, said: "This is incorrect. BondExpress, BondTrac and

BondDesk Gives Odd-Lot Fixed Income Marketplace an Institutional Makeover

5/23/2007
BondDesk Group is expanding its electronic fixed-income marketplace for odd-lot securities into the institutional investment community, the company will announce on Friday. "We've been driving hard to get this platform out to the buy-side marketplace," says Peter Harker managing director at BondDesk Group, which has been quietly evolving BondDesk Institutional (BDI) into a product. BondDesk currently aggregates inventory from over 110 brok

New Independent Research Platform Targets Buy Side

5/23/2007
With the buy-side increasingly looking to separate trading decisions from where it purchases research, a new platform offering independent research is marketing analysts directly to the buy-side. New York-based StreetBrains, LLC is launching a third-party platform focusing on equity, alternative, derivatives and fixed income research analysts. "We've essentially cut out the middlemen," says Lawrence Margolis, a founder and managing directo

Buy-side Traders Seeking Alpha In Asia, Looking For Crossing Networks and Dark Pools

5/21/2007
Asset managers and hedge funds are fueling the volumes in Asian equity markets with DMA and algos. Could crossing networks and dark pools be next?

Creditex Acquires Stake in Trade Settlement Inc.

5/16/2007
Eyeing the market for loan-only credit default swaps, Creditex Group has acquired a minority stake in Trade Settlement Inc. (TSI), a privately held company that operates a post-trade processing platform for syndicated bank loans. As part of the transaction, both companies are also announcing a partnership between TSI and T-Zero, an independently managed subsidiary of Creditex Group,

CME Raises Bid for CBOT, But will ICE Prevail Given Regulatory Concerns?

5/16/2007
With the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) raising its bid to acquire the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) last week to break the Intercontinental's Exchange's chances of winning the bidding war, there is speculation as to whether the upstart electronic energy market and soft commodity exchange will up the ante, or allow the CME to prevail. ] Last Friday, the

Rodriguez Leaves TradeTrek Securities

5/16/2007
George Rodriguez, a managing director at TradeTrek Securities LLC responsible for sales, left his position at the institutional brokerage firm last week. Rodriguez, who was responsible for sales to traditional investment advisers and pension sponsors, left over a disagreement on the direction of the firm, according to Fred Graboyes, president of TradeTrek who is managing partner and runs the firm based in Newark, NJ. TradeTrek is an a

NASD Issues Guidance for Reg NMS Trade Reporting

5/15/2007
As brokers prepare to comply with the Pilot Stocks Phase of Regulation NMS scheduled for July 9th, the NASD issued guidance last week clarifying how member firms should report their trades to the tape. The notice provides guidance on how to use the NASD's new transaction reporting modifiers when brokers are reporting trades that are exceptions or exemptions to Rule 611 of Reg N

Maxim Group Steps into Algorithmic Space via Fidessa BlueBox

5/9/2007
Moving into the algorithmic trading space while retaining control over its order flow, New York-based Maxim Group LLC, has gone live with Fidessa BlueBox, a suite of algorithmic trading strategies from Fidessa Group. Maxim Group has been a sell-side client of Fidessa's order management system since March of 2006 in offering OTC and listed trading to their clients, according to Martin Hakker, EVP

SIFMA Market Structure Report: Brokers Wait for Clarifications on Block Trades as July 9 Reg NMS Implementation Approaches

5/8/2007
Broker dealers are waiting for regulators to clarify certain issues in advance of the July 9 Reg NMS implementation date, according to a panel at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Market Structure conference last Friday. The majority of the unresolved issues are around the block trade exemptions, when to time the trade and print to the tape and sweep and what to do with the residual that is left over, said Christop

Canadian Brokers Band Together to Form Alpha ATS

5/7/2007
With alternative trading systems (ATS) proliferating around the world, seven of Canada's largest investment dealers are planning to establish a new ATS that will pool their internal flows and increase the country's equity trading efficiencies, the group announced on Thursday. "With these seven broker dealers banding together to launch a single ATS for internalization, it's going to make broker internalization in Canada more efficient than ever," says Jackie Chung, president,

Dark Pools Shine the Light on Record Volumes

5/2/2007
Dark books have gained notoriety in the media for anonymously crossing stock trades in non-displayed pools of liquidity, but now they are shining some light on their results as they achieve record volumes. Today, NYFIX Millennium LLC, said it achieved a single-day record when more than 80 million shares matched in its Millennium alternative trading system (ATS). NYFIX reported that trades were matched in over 2,000 individual symbols.

NYSE Euronext Unveils NYSE TransactTools As Global Backbone for Accessing Liquidity Worldwide

5/2/2007
Now that the merger of NYSE Euronext is complete, the global exchange conglomerate has begun to roll out a commercial technology business that will provide connectivity to liquidity sources around the globe. Last week, NYSE Euronext introduced NYSE TransactTools, a broad technology brand that integrates the newly acquired TransactTools with the SFTI network and SIAC's Sector ma