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Breaking : merger AFS and IWB
Wholesale brokers AFS and IWB agreed to merge their operations. The firm will continue under the flag of AFS. The brokers from IWB will join their former competitors in the exchange building. No idea...
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Similar to Comedy Central
NYSE Euronext has got a twitter account. I’m a follower too, but I never noticed much interesting tweets. While it could have been a fine way to communicate about the regular trading interruptions....
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Goldman Sachs and Calimero quit quoting
In the option market, the market makers are quoting options to capture a profit from the bid-ask spread. Apart from this, sending bids and offers to the market serves another practical goal. Euronext...
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Old documentary on floor to screen migration
Last post I mentioned a few local market makers which left the building. Calimero and Wintrading couldn’t earn a living anymore. Rising costs, higher risks and lower profits. Calimero never had a...
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Retail Matching Facility. Not much for retail.
Difficult times for NYSE Euronext. The former monopolist recovered some percentage points in market share against BATS Chi-x, but trading volumes have declined. In the option market the serious...
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TOM and the play offs
A small victory for The Order Machine / TOM. Conform all expectations, NYSE Euronext is forced to allow TOM as a member on their derivative exchange. Even Euronext saw the rain coming, and agreed to...
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Duyfken sails into Quote 500
This Thursday in the stores in the country, the Dutch rich list Quote 500 edition 2012 is out again. The millionaires from the trading floor have my very special attention – and I’m glad to say there’s...
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Curvalue.nl for sale
Short commercial break from our bargain basement. As good as new, second hand domain name for sale. Curvalue.nl is put up for sale at eBay. Somehow a former IT manager at Van der Moolen managed to...
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Risk management fraud at Binck
This morning the Financieele Dagblad brought the frontpage news of Binck firing most of their risk managers. Five out of eight risk managers were shown the door, including the head of the department....
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Good start for Maven
Maven entered the building in September 2011. The London based firm was founded by former traders from two known market makers. Some came from Optiver directly (Ivan Koedjikov), others have spent some...
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Trading pit history
I guess you may remember the interesting documentary about close of the open outcry trading in Amsterdam, zooming in on a few traders. Unfortunately without English subtitles, due to lack of budget...
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NASDAQ buys TOM
While I was still fact checking TOM’s claim over 20% of the option executions find a better price than Euronext Liffe – something bigger is released. Willem Meijer found a better price for TOM itself....
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Mijnbroker is yours
Bad news from Beursplein 5. One of the three firms on the central trading floor has to shut the doors. Mijnbroker.nl is history as of January 1st. The online retail broker offered investors very...
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ICE buys NYSE
Love is all around us this December. Getco buys Knight. NASDAQ buys TOM. Afraid to be alone with Christmas, ICE responds with buying NYSE Euronext. Well, they aren’t really after Euronext nor NYSE :...
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All Options in Charity
First of all, a merry Christmas to all of you. And to stay in the mood, just read about the top seven financial donors to the city of Amsterdam. Charity is a good topic for today. Number five on the...
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Trading ban for former ING trader
It wasn’t a great year for Bob de Wit. Early March the former trader (44) was arrested for fraud during his work for ING Bank between 2009 and 2011 (link, Dutch). He traded 19.245 contracts in illiquid...
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Buttonwood collapsed under rogue trading
The Chicago based trading firm Buttonwood Trading Group is history after a rogue trading incident in the commodity market wiped their balance sheet in December. The firm employed some 50 employees and...
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Ethanol and Kospi trading losses
Knight went down on a single system glitch. Buttonwood lost it all on a rogue trader in Ethanol futures in December. This product is uncharted territory for me, but I’m told its closely connected to...
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WEBB buys Caerus
It’s has been confirmed WEBB Traders takes over Caerus. They have a lot in common. They are both start ups launched after the demise of Van der Moolen. WEBB is mainly active on the cash market, and...
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Confusion on SNS stock options
All your SNS are belong to us. In a swift move the Dutch state nationalized the bank and insurance group SNS Reaal on February 1st. It was in the air for a while, but still shocking to see shares drop...
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