Instinet rumored to be in merger talks with Goldman

Austin Trader · Dec 20, 2002

Per Briefing.com:

"Business Week reports that Reuters seems ready to sell its publicly traded Instinet unit. More important, article speculates that Goldman Sachs is ready to buy."

What affect could this have on liquidity?

Avalanche · Dec 20, 2002

For Goldman if they could Instinet under 10 bucks a share it is probably a steal. They already bought First Options and SLK a while back, SLK ofcourse owns redi, which merged with Arca, which has redi+ for its trading platform. Buying instinet would give them two more more ecn's effectively giving them most of the ECN flow, eliminate a clearing competitior (instinet) which has probably been pressuring margins and getting some mkt share and they would another option of trading platforms (instinet's) to offer some of their customers who prefer something a bit more shall we say "robust"?

The effect on liquidity for traders I would think would be negligible.

Free Thinker · Dec 20, 2002

goldman denied this rumor

OVERtheLINE · Dec 20, 2002

will own every trading vehicle by 2010

Avalanche · Dec 20, 2002

Quote from vhehn:

goldman denied this rumor

I think Bright Trading should buy them out, then they could self-clear, and get a kick ass trading platform just like _______.

:eek:

bungrider · Dec 20, 2002

Quote from Avalanche:

I think Bright Trading should buy them out, then they could self-clear, and get a kick ass trading platform just like _______.

:eek:

uhh....Andover??

bungrider · Dec 20, 2002

MERGER MERGER MERGER

what is the deal with this??

first ISLD-INCA, now maybe this...

is there anything goldman doesn't own??

funny to think of what happened to goldman in 1930 and how strong they are now...

they still annoy me though, with their arrogance...but then again, what doesn't annoy bungrider sometimes?! HA!

calibertrader · Dec 20, 2002

The whole industry is looking to consolidate. Alone they aren't as competitive as they are combined. The bigger the firm, the lower the rates they can offer, since they combine their shares to get discounts from ECN's they don't own, and could offer cheaper rates through the one's they do own cause the higher share volume of the two firms combined reduces the cost per share executed. This wave of consolidation should prove benficial to the day trader in the future, hopefully.