December 21, 2006
I was an officer in charge of Market Data for one of the biggest of the online broker dealers. I furiously fought the acquistion of Arca and Inet by NYSE and NASDAQ, respectively. I was a few months away from gaining approval for utiliziing free INET and ARCA quotes for the clients, as an alternate free source of quotes. This would have reduced fees paid to NASDAQ and NYSE by over $15 million per year. If other broker dealers followed, they would have a real issue on their hands. The acquisitions occured not long after that. Is this antitrust? I told the DOJ antitrust division about this, and they suggested the SEC should look into this. I am not a lawyer, and do not understand who is responsible, but someone should take accountability. Individual retail investors are losing transparency, and access to data, and cannot compete with insitutions and professional traders. Market data is one of the only things that can partially level the playing field. It has to be regulated more heavily. I cannot believe I just said that. I will help and support this anyway that I can. I have many years of both market data technology and business experience.