Few outsiders have as much history with the London Stock Exchange Group as onetime investment banker Xavier Rolet. In 2005, while he was working for Lehman Brothers International (Europe) in London as co-head of global equity capital markets, Rolet became a senior relationship banker to the London Stock Exchange — and helped advise Clara Furse, the LSE’s then CEO, in the aftermath of a series of rapid-fire takeover bids from Deutsche Börse Group, Euronext, Macquarie Group and the Nasdaq Stock Market.
U.S. stock exchanges are pushing regulators to allow traders to quote prices in increments as small as one-tenth of a cent, in a bid to compete with fast-growing alternative platforms like dark pools.
The debate over regulating sponsored access is partly a battle between trading firms that allow unfiltered sponsored access and those that do not, according Joe Gawronski, president and chief operating officer of Rosenblatt Securities.
While banks would be clear losers, the effects would also be immediately felt down the entire food chain of the trading world.
High-frequency traders, whose lightning-fast stock and options tactics have been criticized by senators, are about to learn how far U.S. regulators may go to rein them in.