Themis Trading is an independent, no-conflict, institutional agency brokerage firm specializing in equities. The purpose of our blog is for a discussion of market structure issues as well as general market commentary.
Please note that third-party posts do not reflect the views of the Company and have not been reviewed by the Company for completeness or accuracy.
MICHAEL LEWIS says:
“The principals of Themis Trading, have done more than anyone to explain and publicize the predation in the new stock market. They deserve more lines in this book than they receive but have written their own book on the subject, Broken Markets.”
“When the last history of high-frequency trading is written, Hunsader and Themis Trading deserve a prominent place in it.”
-MICHAEL LEWIS, Flash Boys
BOSTON GLOBE: "Did you read something for Flash Boys you would recommend?"
LEWIS: "Scott Patterson’s Dark Pools, which overlaps with my own book some. What he does really well is tell the early history of automated electronic trading. I’d also recommend Broken Markets and the 1923 novel Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre."
-The Boston Globe, "Bibliophiles: Best-selling author Michael Lewis", March 21, 2015
04
May, 2009
Fight the Machines
As we all know, equity trading has forever changed. Bulge bracket firms are breaking up and dismantling their trading desks. Many of the “sales traders” at these firms are moving on to smaller, boutique brokerage firms where they hope to establish a book of business with their clients that they covered at their previous firms. Relationships still matter on Wall Street. But so does execution. Many of you have probably seen the monk e-mail going around Wall Street where the sales trader calls on one of his old clients to get some business. If you missed it , here it is:
http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/Default.aspx?mid=30031664&cbRecursionCnt=3&cbsid=96f36bc40ecb4959be67196fcf781c2b-294742458-R5-4
The question that the buyside trader must ask himself now is what value is this sales trader bringing to the table now that he is no longer attached to a bigger firm. No longer do you get the first call on research, gone are the days of capital committment, IPO allocations are a thing of the past. So now when you give your order to that sales trader, where does it go? Is a skilled trader executing your order and watching out for all the pitfalls that electronic trading has brought to the market? Or , is your order merely getting placed into the brokers algorithm as the sales trader sits back and watches the machine do all the work? Be very careful because there are alot of other predatory algos and HFT firms that are also watching your order. Not only are they watching but they are taking advantage of your order and profiting from it. Sure, at the end of the day you get your fill near the VWAP. But how much better could that fill have been if you actually had a skilled execution broker working your order and fighting the machines .