Wall Street Clips

Street Makes Forays Into Utility Computing
The promise of utility computing is that computer power could be delivered as easily as electricity. You get exactly as much as you need, you only pay for what you use, and, except for hot summer days in California, there's always more available if you need it.
Securities Industry News Feature (June 2003)

Beyond Linux: Focusing on the future of open source
It's every technology vendor's nightmare: a proprietary moneymaking technology is replaced by a free alternative built by a global army of volunteers working in their spare time, destroying the business model overnight. Of course, this is also the dream of every technology user who's tired of paying too much for unmodifiable code and being locked into one particular platform. Wall Street IT departments are no exception. In fact, with the recent wave of budget cutbacks and a renewed emphasis on efficiency, open source is starting to look really good.
Securities Industry News (June 9, 2003)

Sun Aims New Low-Cost Strategy at Street Firms
Sun Microsystems' permanent shift to a low-cost strategy announced last week was designed in part to appeal to Wall Street firms that have a great deal of money and expertise invested in Sun's Solaris unix operating system-but want to move to a lower-cost platform. Instead of focusing on running a proprietary operating system on proprietary hardware, Sun will now offer Solaris on Intel machines, Sun Linux on Intel machines, and Red Hat Linux on Intel machines-at prices up to 50-percent cheaper than those of Dell, HP and IBM. Previously, the Solaris operating system was not widely available on the x86 Intel microprocessor.
Securities Industry News (May 26, 2003)

Basel II May Impact Securities Biz More Than Expected
The Basel II accord-which would require that financial services firms set aside capital reserves to ensure against credit and operational risk-is likely to extend to securities firms as well as to banks, TowerGroup analysts said last week. The third draft of the Basel II accord was released on Tuesday by the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. There will be a comment period through July 31, and the final accord is due to be completed by the fourth quarter. The recommendations are slated to go into effect at the end of 2006.
Securities Industry News (May 5, 2003)

Help Abounds For Users
All the major consulting firms have invested in the new technology, training programmers, setting up dedicated development centers, and forging ties with technology vendors. The goal? To become attractive to Wall Street firms moving to a services-based architecture. Securities Industry News talked to a number of consulting companies and asked what advice they have to offer Wall Street firms looking to deploy Web services. Here are some of their suggestions.
Securities Industry News (May 5, 2003)

Hand-Helds Dominate Big Board's Trading Floor
Until last fall, traders who wanted to place complex orders with the specialists on the New York Stock Exchange floor had to manually write down the information and hand over little pieces of paper-even traders who had long switched over to hand-held wireless devices. "There are often times a customer would leave an order away from the market, orders with limits, that we'd have to take off the hand-held and put on a paper order," said Robert McCooey Jr., president and CEO at The Griswold Co., based in New York City. "It was too time consuming, and too burdensome, especially in a decimal environment."
Securities Industry News (May 5, 2003)

CBOE Also Embracing New Mobile Technology
The NYSE isn't alone in using hand-helds on the trading floor. At the Chicago Board Options Exchange, 97 percent of trades come from the hand-helds, according to spokesman Gary Compton. Of those devices, 85 percent are proprietary models, brought in by the traders themselves.
Securities Industry News (May 5, 2003)

Wonders of Soap: A Dream for Users, Nightmare for Vendors
Everybody and his brother has a different definition of Web services, but it's really very simple: Web services are built with Soap (Simple Object Access Protocol). If it ain't got Soap, it's not a Web service.
Securities Industry News Feature (May 2003)

As Standards Evolve, Platforms Improve
This year, Microsoft, IBM, BEA and Sun Microsystems are expanding on their basic Web services development frameworks to offer support for the latest security and transaction protocols, improve Web services coordination, and add more management tools.
Securities Industry News Feature (May 2003)

Street's Embrace of Intel, Windows, Linux Boosts Dell
Dell's inexpensive but reliable workstations and laptop computers have always appealed to Wall Street firms, but with the recent interest in Intel, Windows and Linux, grid computing, and, of course, saving money, firms are turning to Dell servers as well.
Securities Industry News Feature (Apr. 2003)

Is Linux technology set to Elbow Unix off Wall Street?
In a remarkable development, a free platform put together by volunteers working in their spare time, has become the operating system of choice for many Wall Street firms. Morgan Stanley is one of them.
Securities Industry News Feature (Feb. 2003)

Internet Dominates Russia's Nascent Market
Newly formed stock markets have the luxury of avoiding burdensome traditions and impenetrable legacy systems. Russia is a prime example. The Russian equities market, fueled by advancements both large and small, has grown rapidly and is now dominated by Internet trading.
Securities Industry News Feature (April 2002)

Firms Turn to Internet Telephony for Flexibility, BCP
All the interviews for this article were conducted using an Internet telephone. But before you start to feel sorry for the folks I talked to, you should know that there was no echo, no lag, no dropped calls and no problems with sound quality. In fact, the only way to tell that I was on an Internet phone is the absence of long distance charges.
Securities Industry News Feature (Jan. 2003)

Tools Help Fend Off New Net Attacks
In protecting the enterprise from ever-escalating assaults from hackers within and without, corporate security pros now have a new weapon-smart devices that can detect even never-before-seen attacks. Ever on the front line, financial firms, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, are among the early adopters of this new technology.
Securities Industry News (November 2002)

IBM, BEA Face Microsoft STP Competition
While Microsoft recently entered the straight-through processing fray with a new tool set, industry leaders IBM and BEA Systems continue to expand on their integration products. BEA unveiled a new way to bring together data from disparate sources earlier this month, and IBM continues to expand on its WebSphere product line, with a new version due the end of the month.
Securities Industry News (November 2002)

It's All About the Benjamins
Hackers don't just target Wall Street firms because they're visible icons of American power. They go after them because there's money at stake. "These are organized criminal groups who have made a business model around hacking because hacking is more lucrative than heroin or cocaine," said a World Bank security expert.
Securities Industry News (November 2002)

Microsoft Upgrades BizTalk
Microsoft is releasing a new set of integration tools on Nov. 4 that work with its BizTalk server application. The new tools will go head-to-head against products from BEA Systems and IBM.
Securities Industry News (November 2002)

Financial Users Balking at New Microsoft Pricing
Microsoft has always been the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to the desktop, but recent changes to its licensing policies have made relations with user firms somewhat strained. "It's sort of a love-hate relationship," said Putnam Lovell's Rodric O'Connor.
Securities Industry News (October 2002)

Data, Disaster Recovery Driving 10-Gigabit Ethernet
With the approval of 10-gigabit Ethernet as a standard for transmitting data over networks earlier this summer, vendors have already begun rolling out products, though many customers are waiting for prices to drop.
Securities Industry News (September 2002)

Big Board to shift brokers to TCP/IP Standard
Although TCP/IP is the common communication standard for the Internet and in many other environments, the New York Stock Exchange has been supporting older protocols as well. But beginning last month, the NYSE stopped accepting requests for new lines based on old standards and, as of Dec. 31 2003, all customer lines into CMS (Common Message Switch) must use the TCP/IP communication standard.
Securities Industry News (September 2002)

Backup site saved
The New York Board of Trade (Nybot), which was located in 4 World Trade Center, lost its trading floor on Sept. 11. If a small, two-ring trading floor had not been previously built in Long Island City for just such an event, the exchange would have gone out of business permanently.
Securities Industry News (September 2002)

Microsoft, IBM, BEA Merge Web Services Standards
In the next release of IBM's Web services platform, called WebSphere, the company will start to implement a set of higher-order Web services standards developed jointly with competitors BEA and Microsoft.
Securities Industry News (August 2002)

PwC Buy to Put IBM in Top Biz Transformation Tier
With approval of the IBM-PricewaterhouseCoopers deal due by the end of September, Wall Street customers may soon see a greater range of strategic business consulting services from IBM, a timely addition to the technology consulting services the company now offers.
Securities Industry News (August 2002)

Sun Betting on Linux With Fully Packed Box
In a big step forward for the open-source operating system, Sun Microsystems is set to roll out a new general-purpose Linux server this Monday as well as announce that it is making the Sun One Web application server stack, formerly known as iPlanet, available on the Linux platform.
Securities Industry News (August 2002)

Catching the Outsourcing Wave
Pressure to reduce costs, improve efficiency and increase flexibility in the back office seem to be driving the brokerage industry toward a long-term shift to outsourcing.
Securities Industry News (August 2002)

Alliance Proposes ID Standard
The tantalizing goal of intra-company-and cross-company-integration got a step closer last week with the release of a new authentification and identity standard from Liberty Alliance.
Securities Industry News (July 2002)

Web Services: Changing How Firms connect
In the never-ending search to do business better, faster and cheaper, Wall Street firms are seriously looking at adopting Web services communication standards-and some are already doing more than just looking.
Securities Industry News (July 2002)

Internet telephony: Boon for disaster-recovery efforts
After Sept. 11, Merrill Lynch-which is located directly across the street from the World Trade Center site-discovered that voice over IP phones make moving people to new offices a snap.
Securities Industry News (July 2002)

Microsoft, Sun, HP, IBM, Intel Tout Alliances
Technology heavyweights Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Intel all made their presence known at the Securities Industry Association's Technology Management conference last week, with announcements and presentations involving partnerships and alliances, straight-through processing and Web services.
Securities Industry News (July 2002)

Mercator, BEA Systems Team Up on Integration
Mercator Software and BEA Systems, two leading technology providers, have teamed up to offer Wall Street customers a set of integration tools-and to defend their turf against other vendors.
Securities Industry News (July 2002)

IBM Shuts Down Sequent's Numa-Q; Sun Makes Grab for Users
In 1999, IBM bought Sequent Computer Corp. and its Numa-Q line of servers for $810 million-only to shut it down completely last month, finally laying off its 250 Beaverton, Ore. employees amid a broader set of layoffs around the country.
Securities Industry News (July 2002)

Javelin, Iona Team Up for FIX-Based Web Services
Two leading technology vendors have hopped on the Web services bandwagon and announced last week that they have joined forces to offer a FIX engine over a Web services connection.
Securities Industry News (July 2002)

When Passwords Are Not Enough for Security
If cyber movies have taught Wall Street security experts anything, it's that passwords by themselves can't keep bad things from happening.
Securities Industry News (July 2002)

Mckinley Rides Merrill Lynch's Second Tech Wave
John McKinley, Merrill Lynch's chief technology executive, saw his first major tech downturn when he was still in grade school.
E-Securities (July 2002)

Natural-Language Speech Technology Can Ease Costs, Reduce Frustrations
To maintain phone-related operational efficiency in this environment- - and at a time when customers don't want to spend hours wading through those touch-tone menus -- is a challenge for T. Rowe Price and firms throughout the industry.
E-Securities (July 2002)

Searching for Quick Answers
Understanding what a customer writes is slightly easier than understanding what he or she says. When one writes, there are no regional accents or ambient noise. But still, there are pitfalls.
E-Securities (July 2002)

Solaris 9 Promises More Security, Web Services Support
Sun took a step forward in the emerging area of Web Services last week when it announced that support for the technology will be directly integrated into the latest release of its Solaris operating system.
Securities Industry News (May 2002)

Distributing Data Can Save Time, Money- Maybe a Company
This year and next marks an inflection point for the storage marketplace on Wall Street. For the first time ever, firms are starting to look more toward networked storage when they buy new systems.
Securities Industry News (May 2002)

Networks without wires
Advances in security and a focus on business continuity plans are converging to make wireless local area networks more appealing to securities firms.
Securities Industry News (May 2002)

Internet Dominates Russia's Nascent Market
Newly formed stock markets have the luxury of avoiding burdensome traditions and impenetrable legacy systems. Russia is a prime example. The Russian equities market, fueled by advancements both large and small, has grown rapidly and is now dominated by Internet trading.
Securities Industry News (April 2002)

Instant Messaging Popping Up All Over
Instant messaging can improve communication and collaboration -- but if a company doesn't offer instant messaging to its employees, they will get it on their own by downloading insecure, unreliable and unarchived consumer solutions for free over the Internet.
Securities Industry News (April 2002)

At The NYSE, The Paper Chase Is Over
Perhaps the New York Stock Exchange's most famous image is the paper blizzard that comes with a bell-closing rally and the littered exchange floor that results. But times are changing. Much of the paper that once passed from trader to runner, from trader to trader and from trader to customer has been replaced by technology -- hand-held devices used for trade information, emails, instant messages and customer communications.
E-Securities (April 2002)

Sun Plugs Hole in Server Line With Starkitty
Sun filled a hole in its server line last week by introducing the Sun Fire 12K, otherwise known as "Starkitty."
Securities Industry News (April 2002)

Experts Warn of New Security Vulnerabilities
Hackers will soon have a new kind of soft spot to target-Web services.
Securities Industry News (April 2002)

More Java Spilling Across Wall Street Enterprises
Java has hit prime time on Wall Street. Java is versatile because the same program can run on any machine or device.
Securities Industry News (April 2002)

Compaq Vows Support for Himalaya Post-HP
The final results of the HP-Compaq merger vote may not be in for a couple of weeks, but early results show it's a go-and Compaq has been working overtime to ease customer minds about the integration.
Securities Industry News (April 2002)

Exchanges Take Hands-On, Hands-Off Approach to Devices
Unlike the NYSE, the Chicago Board Options Exchange doesn't provide hand-held devices to its traders, but it does encourage them to bring their own.
E-Securities (April 2002)

Linux system targets Infrastructure's Heart
Linux is rapidly becoming the best-kept secret on Wall Street. Although few companies want to talk about it, many are reportedly using the open operating system to lower the cost of their Web infrastructure and to run high performance computing applications.
Securities Industry News (March 2002)

Compaq, Intel Push Wintel-based STP solutions
Compaq and Intel last week said they are teaming up on a project called "Compass" that aims to bring straight-through processing applications to the Windows-Intel platform and includes financial technology vendors Neoves, Netik and SunGard.
Securities Industry News (March 2002)

Sun Microsystems Unveils Expanded Use of Linux
Sun Microsystems has slated a teleconference today, March 4, to tout its new commitment to Linux, the free and open-source operating system.
Securities Industry News (March 2002)

Firms Weigh Data Cleaning For STP, T+1
As the T+1 deadline looms, Wall Street firms are also starting to look to vendors to help them fix mistakes, fill in holes, and reconcile multiple data streams.
Securities Industry News (February 2002)

Grid Computing Could Cut Costs, Improve Performance
In a year of trying to do more with less, Wall Street firms are taking a hard look at grid computing -- a way to spread applications around servers regardless of their locations or the operating systems they run.
Securities Industry News (January 2002)

Brokerage Technology: Rethinking IT Priorities in a Tough Economy
Charles Schwab, Merrill Lynch, Ameritrade, Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley all announced plans to lay off employees this year.
Securities Industry News (January 2002)

HP-Capco Alliance to Target Financial Services
Hewlett-Packard's $30 million deal with Capco announced last week gives the hardware vendor financial services consulting capability-and lets it compete with IBM's full-service approach.
Securities Industry News (January 2002)

eSpeed Charts Road To Recovery
The events of Sept. 11 hit the firm of Cantor Fitzgerald harder than any other company in the World Trade Center.
E-Securities (December 2001)

Elusive Goal of Product Convergence Now Gets A Big Boost From Technology
While the success of financial supermarkets has been spotty in the past, the inroads of technology in both front and back-office operations may finally be creating an environment amenable to the concept.
E-Securities (December 2001)

Thin-Client Benefits Back in Spotlight Among Street Firms
If an application is distributed over the Internet through a Web browser interface, there is no need to reinstall it on each new desktop-and no need for desktops to be physically connected to a mainframe.
Securities Industry News (November 2002)

Nybot Photo 4 World Trade Center, former site of Nybot trading floor

Completely Redundant
From the moment it was proposed, there were skeptics. People wondered why the New York Board of Trade needed to maintain a backup trading floor at a cost of $300,000 a year. After all, typically not even major exchanges have such sites.
E-Securities (October 2001)

Contingency Plans in the Spotlight
The Sept. 11 attacks demonstrated clearly-and tragically-that disaster-recovery planning is not a luxury, but a necessity in today's world. But it also highlighted flaws and weaknesses in many long-established plans.
E-Securities (October 2001)

Mixed Reviews On Wall Street For Innovative XP
Windows XP is the most innovative addition to the Windows family in years, finally burying the old MS-DOS code base and moving everyone-both consumers and businesses-to the same NT architecture…
Securities Industry News (October 2001)

High-End ServersBattling to Win Financial Firms
Both IBM and Sun Microsystems have recently announced new high-end servers that mimic mainframe functionality, that hold promise for the financial services sector, but their timing could have been better, experts say…
Securities Industry Newss Subscription required (October 2001)

Radianz, Global Crossing Find Redundancy Pays
With redundant systems and quick response procedures, both Radianz and Global Crossing Ltd. got their customers up and running quickly after Sept. 11.
Securities Industry News (September 2001)

Tech Companies Rush To Help Clients recover
More than any other industry on the planet, financial services depends on an extensive technological infrastructure, and in the days following the attack technology providers rushed in and worked round the clock to restore this infrastructure to full functionality.
Securities Industry News (September 2001)

Napster-like peer-to-peer Systems spread
The courts may have brought Napster to its virtual knees, but other peer-to-peer applications are still alive and kicking-and not just in the music business.
Securities Industry News (September 2001)

Post-Merger LabMorgan: Combined E-Com Unit Still in the Hunt for Innovative Technologies
Before completing their high-profile merger just after the first of the year, both Chase Manhattan and J.P. Morgan responded to the growing possibilities of electronic commerce by creating in-house divisions dedicated to finding, investing in and sometimes spinning off promising technology companies.
E-Securities (October 2001)

Web Services on the Real-Time Internet
The U.S. government may be trying to break up Microsoft's monopoly through lawsuits, but the real battle over the company's future is being fought on a different front. It involves a new way of writing software, called Web services, and it promises to make operating systems, the very thing that forms the foundation of the Microsoft empire, irrelevant…
E-Securities Aug./Sep. 2001

Wall Street Firms Look Externally for Web Security
The Code Red worm didn't do as much harm as expected during its infestation earlier this summer.
Securities Industry News (August 2001)

Building Portals Doesn't ensure Customers will come
Last year, single-dealer portals were seen by major broker-dealers as a way to reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, and reach new markets. Today, that promise has been mostly unfulfilled.
Securities Industry News (September 2001)

Web Services
Web services are a new class of applications that can talk and work with one another over the Internet.
Computerworld Feature (September 2001)

Microsoft gears up to battle Java on Wall Street
Sun Microsystems' Java technology, combined with emerging XML standards, makes it easy for Java applications on one platform to interact with Java applications on any other platform.
Securities Industry News (July 2001)

Reaction Mixed as SuperSoes Rolls Out
The SuperSoes trade execution system, which Nasdaq is attempting to roll out for the third time this week combines features of the current Small Order Execution System (Soes) and Selectnet.
Securities Industry News (July 2001)

Video Connection spreading across traders' desks
Videoconferencing has long been a staple of science fiction, but has taken longer to catch on in the real world than anyone expected.
Securities Industry News (June 2001)

Peer-to-peer appeal for distributed computing efforts
While peer-to-peer systems like Napster are the tech topic of the moment, a close cousin-peer-to-peer distributed computing-has actually shown itself to be more useful.
Securities Industry News (June 2001)

Peer-to-Peer Makes Inroads on Wall St.
Proponents of peer-to-peer computing say the technology promises to increase Wall Street computing power tenfold while decreasing costs by the same amount. First Union is already experiencing the savings.
Computerworld News Analysis (April 2001)

Nasdaq Begins Trading Stocks in Decimals
The Nasdaq Stock Market caught up to the rest of the securities industry -- and the rest of the world -- last week when it finally dropped fractions and switched to decimal stock pricing.
Computerworld News (April 2001)

Layoffs Hit IT Staff On Wall Street
With the downturn in the stock market, brokerage firms have watched their commissions drop off - and are now cutting back on spending and staffing to cut costs.
Computerworld News (April 2001)

Report: Big Iron Still Rules Wall Street
Mainframes will continue to perform key processing functions for the securities industry for at least another decade, according to a new report from Meridien Research.
Computerworld News (April 2001)

Wall Street Releases Draft XML Standard
The RIXML.org Standards Committee has released a draft version of RIXML 1.0 that's aimed at giving brokerages a common language for describing equity research.
Computerworld News (April 2001)

Mainframes still rule on Wall Street
Mainframe computers will continue to perform key processing functions for the securities industry for at least another decade, according to a new report from Meridien Research.
Computerworld News (March 2001)

Schwab to lay off up to 3,400
Citing the stock market sell-off and an overcapacity for handling online trading, Charles Schwab & Co. executives announced major job cuts yesterday amounting to 11% to 13% of the company's workforce.
Computerworld News (March 2001)

Schwab, CSFBdirect to cut jobs
Discount broker Charles Schwab and CSFBdirect said this week that they would cut staff to reduce costs, in another sign that times are tough for online brokerages.
Computerworld News (March 2001)

Schwab database glitch cuts users off from some information
Charles Schwab was forced to temporarily switch its online trading Web site to a backup server yesterday, a move that blocked its customers from receiving trade confirmation messages and from viewing previous trading records.
Computerworld News (February 2001)

Wall St. IT Women Trail Men in Pay
Women have almost completely caught up to men when it comes to IT salaries on Wall Street, a new report says -- if sales jobs aren't counted. According to a just-completed survey of 200 securities industry financial technology professionals, the median income for men was $218,000 -- and only $143,000 for women.
Computerworld News (February 2001)

Brokerage Joins Movement Away From Net Pure-Plays
In yet another example of the move away from Internet pure-plays, online brokerage Suretrade will officially be folded back into parent company Quick & Reilly as of March 3.
Computerworld News (February 2001)

Decimalization Finds Its First Victims at Ameritrade
The first decimalization-related problem of the year has hit Ameritrade customers.
Computerworld News (February 2001)

Accounting Change May Affect Mergers
The Financial Accounting Standards Board last week voted unanimously to approve an accounting rule change that could be a blow for corporations that pursue acquisitions of technology firms.
Computerworld News (February 2001)

SEC OKs Nasdaq Trading System, Despite Objections
The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously decided to approve a new trading system for the Nasdaq Stock Market earlier this month, but opponents are concerned about decreased competition and possible costs to consumers.
Computerworld News (January2001)

U.S. Brokerages and Banks Push to Close Wireless Cash Gap
According to a new report by Celent Communications, the total number of people worldwide who transfer money using wireless devices is expected to increase from 4.6 million today to 60 million by 2004.
Computerworld News (January 2001)

Ameritrade, J.P. Morgan to Lay Off Employees of Online Operations
Online brokerage Ameritrade Holding Corp. said last week that it will lay off more than 300 employees, and Morgan OnLine confirmed that it will lay off about 150 employees.
Computerworld News (January 2001)

Ameritrade, J.P. Morgan to cut workers
Online brokerage Ameritrade said today that it will lay off more than 300 employees, and Morgan OnLine confirmed that it will lay off about 150 employees.
Computerworld News (January 2001)

Schwab Tightens Spending
In response to a drop in customer stock trading, discount brokerage Charles Schwab & Co. said that it would freeze hiring and review project spending.
Computerworld News (December 2000)

Online Bond and Foreign Exchange Industries Probed
Officials in the brokerage industry confirmed that some financial services firms have received letters from the U.S. Department of Justice asking for information about their online bond trading plans.
Computerworld News (December 2000)

DOJ investigating online bond brokers
Officials in the brokerage industry confirmed that some financial services firms have received letters from the U.S. Department of Justice asking for information about their online bond trading plans.
Computerworld News (December 2000)

Integration Key to New-Style Brokerage, Study Finds
The battleground for brokerage customers has shifted away from cost, according to a new study. Today, brokerages are competing for customers based on service and cross-channel integration, and the trend will only increase in 202001.
Computerworld News (November 2000)

Citigroup Opens Online Brokerage
Citigroup launched its online brokerage last week. Called CitiTrade, it's a stand-alone brokerage - but may be coming too late to a crowded market where online brokers are starting to offer everything from soup to nuts.
Computerworld News (November 2000)

New SEC Rule Pushes More Firms to Web
According to a new rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission, all investors have the right to know about news that could affect a company's stock price. And vendors are offering all kinds of information technology to help customers comply with that rule.
Computerworld News (November 2000)

Schwab Strikes Deal With AOL
America Online has aligned itself with Charles Schwab in the largest online marketing deal ever for the brokerage.
Computerworld News (November 2000)

XML Gains Momentum in Financial Services Industry
Yet another XML-based standard has been added to the library of different protocols already being developed for financial services. RIXML -- Research Information Exchange Markup Language -- promises to make it easier for investors to share data about companies.
Computerworld News (October 2000)

Portals Promise Smart Way to Route Trades
Wall Street's IT professionals learned about a new kind of trading system at a technology conference in New York City last week -- a system that could have enormous potential in changing the way trades are placed.
Computerworld News (October 2000)

Nasdaq adds two new technology executives
Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. named a new chief technology officer and a systems engineering vice president who are expected to help with key projects such as a conversion to decimal-based pricing.
Computerworld News (October 2000)

Nasdaq Changes Plan To Appease Critics
Nasdaq Stock Market last week announced additional changes to its proposed SuperMontage front-end trading system in an effort to address concerns about the technology that have been raised by the operators of private trading networks and other critics.
Computerworld News (October 2000)

Wall Street in fog over e-signatures
The law legalizing the use of electronic signatures went into effect yesterday, but the measure set off alarms on Wall Street last week, as executives said they were unclear whether the law's provisions regarding how to store documents pertained to them. That's because the Securities and ...
Computerworld News (October 2000)

Brokerage firms nervous about conflicts between digital signatures law and SEC rules
At a Securities Industry Association conference, attendees expressed concern about discrepancies between the new federal law on digital signatures and existing Securities and Exchange Commission guidelines for sending documents electronically.
Computerworld News (September 2000)

Nasdaq changes trading system proposal to appease critics
The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. modified its proposed SuperMontage front-end trading system to try to win over private trading networks that fear the new system would discriminate against them.
Computerworld News (September 2000)

Bigger Than Y2k
Shortening the settlement cycle from three days to one, known as T+1, promises to be more expensive for Wall Street than Y2k -- and more complicated. CIO Kurt Woetzel says The Bank of New York still has to convert from batch
Computerworld Feature (September 2000)

Top Banks Launch Joint Site for Corporate Clients
Seven of the world's leading investment banks have announced plans to launch a joint financial information Web site for their institutional clients.
News September 2000)

Nasdaq Unveils Improved Front-End Market System
Nasdaq presented its new SuperMontage front-end system on Tuesday at a press conference in New York. Officials said it will give traders more information and new tools - but alternative trading systems call it unfair competition.
Computerworld News (August 2000)

Power Brokers Race to Trade On International Markets
In the quest for overseas trading dollars, U.S. brokerages are forging alliances at a furious pace. From Asia to Australia, these partnerships - enabled by IP, XML and other technologies - bring local populations the opportunity to buy U.S.-listed stocks, either online or off-line. Ameritrade CIO Jim ...
Computerworld Feature (August 2000)

Broker Seeks Retail Markets
Interactive Brokers opened up its proprietary trading platform, which traditionally served institutional customers, to the retail side in 1998. Yet even as the company has customers in 71 countries and direct connections to 39 exchanges in 17 countries, everyone can't buy everything - for ...
Computerworld News (August 2000)

Stock exchanges submit detailed decimalization plan
The major stock exchanges and the National Association of Securities Dealers this week filed their full plan for phasing in decimal-based pricing of securities starting next month.
Computerworld News (July 2000)

Chicago Board of Trade Automates With Euro Rival
The Chicago Board of Trade plans to kick off testing of its new electronic trading system this week. The new system, developed in partnership with Eurex, a fully electronic, Frankfurt-based derivatives exchange, comes at a time when the CBOT is undergoing massive restructuring.
Computerworld News (July 2000)

Financiers Aim to Unify XML Standards
A new financial services industry group is trying to weed through two dozen existing XML-based financial standards to come up with one universal lexicon.
Computerworld News (July 2000)

In Internet First, Wells Fargo Sued Over Alleged Racial Text on Site
Wells Fargo is re-evaluating its "Community Search Service" partner after a national community organization sued the company over what it called "explicit racial classifications and racial stereotypes of neighborhoods" at the end of June.
Computerworld News (July 2000)

J. P. Morgan IT Exec Loosens Grip on Services
The fast pace of technological change is causing many companies to rethink their businesses. At J. P. Morgan, Veronique Weill is doing that type of thinking. And her thinking is: J. P. Morgan should be managing assets - not technology - so it is outsourcing with the Bank of New York.
Computerworld News (July 2000)

Net Bond Marketplace Going to Prime Time
Online bond trading has been lagging significantly behind stock trading, but two new ventures suggest the gap might soon start to close.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

Nasdaq Says It Will Meet Revised Decimalization Deadline
The Securities and Exchange Commission has moved its decimalization deadline - the date by which the stock markets have to convert from fractions to decimals - from next month to next April, after Nasdaq protested that it wouldn't be able to meet the earlier deadline.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

Online brokers ready for digital signatures
Move will allow e-businesses that require paper signatures to sign new customers more quickly.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

ETrade to buy Canadian e-broker
Pays $174 million for Canadian licensee, for robust trading system, greater access to international trading capability.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

Online bond marketplace moving to prime time
Online bond trading has been lagging significantly behind stock trading, but two new ventures suggest the gap might soon start to close.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

NYSE Participates in Global Trading Talks
The New York Stock Exchange said it's discussing a Global Equity Market with nine other stock exchanges around the world.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

Schwab, Quick & Reilly Debut Wireless Trading
Two online brokerages - Charles Schwab and Quick & Reilly - have launched their wireless services, targeting the profitable frequent-trader customer base.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

SEC warns of dangers of after-hours trading
At request of Congress, SEC details risks of the fast-changing prices on after-hours exchanges, which might catch daylight traders off guard.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

NYSE, nine other stock exchanges explore global trading accord
The New York Stock Exchange said it's discussing the possible formation of a global equity market with nine other stock exchanges around the world, including the Tokyo Stock Exchange and bourses in Paris, Hong Kong and Sao Paolo.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

Seven financial firms join to create foreign exchange Web site
Seven of the world's top financial services companies have joined forces to create a foreign exchange Web site. FXall.com promises to offer low-cost, one-stop electronic access to services ranging from foreign exchange research to actual trading.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

SEC May Loosen Reins on Foreign Biz
SEC considers proposal to let foreign companies trade on U.S. exchanges under relaxed rules.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

Analysts: Stormy Days Ahead for Tech IPOs
The first quarter of 2000 was a record breaker for IPOs and venture capital funding. While the recent swings in the market have cast a shadow over the investment community, industry watchers say that commitment to technology is still strong.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

ETrade, Ernst & Young Pair Up to Offer Financial Advice
Online brokerage ETrade and Big Five consultant Ernst & Young have joined forces to form a new company that aims to marry personalized financial advice and the Internet.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

Online exchange for muni bonds goes live
TheMuniCenter, backed by industry giants Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Citigroup Inc.'s Salomon Smith Barney unit, opened its doors this week, becoming the first online exchange for municipal bonds to go live.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

Stormy weather for tech IPOs
The first quarter of 2000 was a record breaker for IPOs and venture capital funding. While the recent swings in the market have cast a shadow over the investment community, industry watchers say committment to technology is still strong.
Computerworld News (June 2000)

Nasdaq Cuts Fees to Compete on Internet
Following a price cut for its bare-bones Level 1 services from $2 to $1 per month for individual investors, Nasdaq last week decided to drop its Level 2 costs from $50 to $10 a month. The move, critics say, will be good for Nasdaq's public image but bad for the exchange's bottom line.
Computerworld News (May 2000)

First U.S. All-Electronic Options Exchange Opens
International Securities Exchange challenges mixed-media traders
Computerworld News (May 2000)

Nasdaq Under Fire For Neglecting IT
A major electronic communications network, Instinet, said its customers were hobbled for an hour this week due to technical glitches in the Nasdaq's trading system.
Computerworld News (May 2000)

Chase sues mortgage vendor for $20M-plus
Chase Manhattan's mortgage unit alleges that online mortgage software developed by embattled Mynd Corp. was delivered late and didn't perform as the vendor promised it would.
Computerworld News (May 2000)

Competition Brings Stock Trading Costs Down to Zero
New online brokerages are offering free stock trades, a feature that some analysts say could become profitable. But traditional online brokerages say they aren't worried about the competition because they offer specialized services that unestablished start-ups can't even touch.
Computerworld News (May 2000)

Voice Recognition Eases Call-In Trading
DLJdirect last week became the latest online brokerage to jump on the voice recognition bandwagon. Within the next few months, instead of touching "426" on the telephone keypad for IBM, customers will just be able to say the name of the company.
Computerworld News (May 2000)

ETrade Fined for Slow Complaint Response
NASD Regulation Inc., the regulatory arm of the National Association of Securities Dealers Inc., censured and fined ETrade Securities Inc. $20,000 last week for its slow response to the regulators' requests for information about customer complaints.
Computerworld News (May 2000)

Real-Time Reporting
DEFINITION Real-time reporting makes financial and other company data available on demand rather than on regularly scheduled annual, quarterly or monthly cycles. Management can then respond more quickly to problems or opportunities that arise.
Computerworld Feature (May 2000)

Nymex launching online commodities exchange
The New York Mercantile Exchange plans to support Internet-based trading of contracts for physical commodities such as crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and electricity.
Computerworld News (May 2000)

Microsoft Pitches Win 2k to Wall Street
Microsoft announced a major push into the financial services arena last week at a Financial Summit in New York. CEO Steve Ballmer criticized Sun's "big box" approach to Web servers and pitched Windows 2000 as a cheaper, more scalable alternative.
Computerworld News (May 2000)

Banks Offer Fractional Stock-Buying Service
Wells Fargo, Safeco Insurance & Life and a number of other financial service institutions are rolling out a service that lets their customers buy fractional shares of stocks - at $1 or $2 per transaction.
Computerworld News (May 2000)

Opposition fails to block Nasdaq spin-off
The spin-off of the Nasdaq Stock Market will proceed apace, as an opposition group failed in its bid to get a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the plan.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

Finance Players Back XML-Based Standard
Biggest players back new XML-based financial standard.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

SEC postpones stock decimalization shift
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt said the SEC would postpone the switch from fraction to decimal-based stock pricing because of delays in converting to the new system at the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

Actant Plans ISE Interface
Swiss software vendor Actant AG plans to move into the U.S. market by June with the delivery of a user-friendly interface to the International Securities Exchange (ISE).
Computerworld News (April 2000)

Stock Market Blitz Shakes Systems
Three of the world's largest stock exchanges -- Nasdaq, London and Toronto -- suffered from systems outages or slowdowns last week during a period of particularly heavy trading.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

NYSE Board Rejects Proposal for Centralized Network
The New York Stock Exchange board of directors rejected a proposal to create a consolidated limit-order book - a central clearinghouse for stock prices - and instead endorsed a multiplatform structure that they said allows more customer choice.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

LatinStocks.com launches Mexico site
LatinStocks.com announced the creation of its fourth site, and said it's working on offering trading at U.S., Mexico, Brazil and Argentina sites soon.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

Big names back new XML-based financial standard
The world's top financial institutions have formed a consortium to promote an XML-based standard for exchanging financial data over the Internet.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

London Stock Exchanges finds, fixes software bug
The London Stock Exchange identified and fixed a problem with real-time data that caused a delay of almost eight hours in the exchange opening.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

Record volume snarls Nasdaq
The Nasdaq Stock Market suffered capacity-related delays in its stock quotation system.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

SEC vows hands off e-mail, chat rooms
In response to concern about the agency's plans to monitor the Internet for illegal activities, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission promised that the SEC will not snoop on electronic conversations and e-mail.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

Three stock exchanges zapped by computer glitches
Three of the world's largest stock exchanges -- Nasdaq, London and Toronto -- each suffered from unrelated systems outages and slowdowns at different times this week during periods of particularly heavy trading.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

Network glitch delays London Stock Exchange opening eight hours
A glitch in a network that sends real-time price information and other data from central trading systems to market users forced the London Stock Exchange to extend its trading hours.
Computerworld News (April 2000)

Pacific Exchange taps bank exec as CIO
The Pacific Exchange has named James Yee, former managing director and CIO at Banc of America Securities, as its new technology chief.
Computerworld News (April 2000)
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SEC may postpone decimalization move
Now that The Nasdaq Stock Market has admitted that it won't meet the July 3 deadline to prepare its computer systems to handle decimal-based stock prices, the Securities and Exchange Commission said it will likely bump the cutover date by a month or two.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Datek Online traders get boxed out
Datek Online customers were forced to call in stock trades over the phone -- or access the online brokerage through alternate Web addresses -- for 30 minutes due to a systems glitch.
Computerworld News (29 March 2000)

Ownership issue may delay ETrade's ATM plans
ETrade's plans to create a nationwide, branded ATM network could be stymied by the fact that takeover target Card Capture Services Inc. owns only a small fraction of the 8,500 ATMs it manages.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

ETrade Makes Move From Clicks to Bricks
ETrade plans to turn ATMs into financial kiosks.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Merrill Lynch IT exec heads to dot-com
John Ginelli, a high-ranking IT executive at the nation's top brokerage, has left Merrill Lynch to head Nitorum Corp., a business-to-business Internet start-up aimed at automating the hiring process.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

SEC alleges Internet insider trading ring
A word processing temp at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston is accused of being the linchpin in an Internet trading scam that enabled 19 people -- including himself -- to make $8.4 million in illegal tips.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

ETrade to buy largest independent network of ATMs
ETrade Group plans to acquire the nation's largest independent network of automated teller machines and become the third-largest operator of ATMs in the U.S.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Big brokerages to expand bond site into securities hub
Six Wall Street firms to use Securities.Hub to link their Web sites, feature bond research and price quotes for institutional investors.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

NASD Asks SEC to Postpone Stock Decimalization Push
Nasdaq's parent company has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to put off the decimalization of the nation's securities markets until 202001.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Internet-Based Foreign Exchange Service Debuts
Barclays, Charles Schwab team up to offer online currency trading.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Investment Clubs Move Online
A new Boulder, Colo.-based online service is taking it upon itself to transform the back-office operations of investment clubs -- semiformal informational consortia that fill a niche between do-it-yourself online brokerages and full-service houses.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Merrill Lynch stock orders delayed by server snafu
Capacity problems delayed stock orders until more servers were added by the New York-based brokerage.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Bank to launch Web-based foreign exchange service
Barclays, Charles Schwab team up to offer online currency trading -- but U.S. investors will have to wait.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

SEC OKs All-Electronic Stock Exchange
The International Securities Exchange will open its electronic doors May 26, the first new exchange approved by the SEC in 27 years.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Central Securities Market Idea Draws Heat
Brokers clashed with the heads of the nation's biggest stock exchanges in a heated discussion over the future of the U.S. securities marketplace at a government hearing last week at the World Trade Center.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

FTC Moves to Protect Financial Data Privacy
Companies are warning investors of possible fallout from privacy regulations proposed by the FTC, but privacy advocates say the regulations don't go far enough.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Investors Are Wary of Handheld Trading
Is wireless good for brokers or not? Merrill Lynch's John Galvin says not yet. Others say it's time to get on the bandwagon.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

NYSE, Nasdaq in reported merger talks
A report in The Wall Street Journal claims the nation's top stock exchanges have discussed the possibility of a merger to preserve their role in a centralized marketplace where electronic interconnections should rule. Nasdaq officials say there are no current negotiations under way with the Big Board.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

SEC approves new electronic options exchange
The International Securities Exchange, the first new exchange approved by the Security Exchange Commission in 27 years, will open its electronic doors May 26.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Exchanges, brokerages disagree on market restructuring
Big brokerages like Merrill Lynch want to create a central marketplace to make it easier for investors to buy and sell stocks. But small and discount brokers might suffer by having to raise their customer fees.
Computerworld News (March 2000)

Site Opens Market To Small Investors
Two months ago, ShareBuilder.com began offering first-time and small investors the opportunity to easily and cheaply buy any dollar amounts of stock.
Computerworld News (February 2000)

NASD takes aim at online day-trading firms
Regulator charges online day-trading firms with misuse of customer funds, improper lending practices and exaggerated or misleading advertising.
Computerworld News (February 2000)