Bob McGregor

Will 'Dark Pools' Be the Capital Markets' Next Black Holes?

Forgot to mention earlier that a consortia comprising GS, MER, CS, MS in concert with 2 Australian Brokers COMMSEC and Macquarie Securities [subsidiaries of CBA and MQG respectively] own 50% of a dark pool - AXE - in conjunction with NZX [New Zealand's listed Exchange]. They currently have an application before the Australian Government to be issued a Licence to create a trading platform to trade in competition with the Australian Securities Exchange. Other dark pool applicants are Liquidnet and Chi-X.

Hopefully the Australian Government will reject such overtures and enforce the status quo - of restricting trading in Australian listed securities to the sovereign exchange on which they are listed.

Will 'Dark Pools' Be the Capital Markets' Next Black Holes?

Apart from Dark Pools there is every reason for trading to revert to ONE centalised platform and that is the one that LISTS the Company. Siphoning off liquidity is at the expense of not only liquidity but also transparency.

Of further concern is the current push by USA Treasury and the USA Federal Reserve to pressure Congress to GRANT them more powers in Regulating USA markets - read that to "mean" Regulate World markets by default!

Strange, I thought they CAUSED the malaise in the first place. Additional powers would be like pouring more fuel on the fire.

PS Which of the two "entities" mentioned above is OWNED by the USA people? Who owns the other?