Here are some of the highlights from the NYT article mentioned by Gaj:
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"There haven't been a lot of innovations from the New York Stock Exchange," said Peter W. Jenkins, head of North American equity trading at Deutsche Asset Management in New York. "Really nothing has changed. They haven't come up with the tools for the institutions to make their process more efficient. There are still so many steps between us and the specialist's post, that we can't execute efficiently."
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"I used to detest trading on Nasdaq years ago and always preferred the Big Board," said William Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital in Seattle.
But he said he had had so many problems with trades on the Big Board that he had come to believe that the specialist system was flawed. "I don't see how having one guy making a market is better than having 50 guys making a market," he said.
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Mr. Jenkins of Deutsche Asset Management agreed. "The liquidity in Nasdaq allows us to execute larger size in the big-name stocks more efficiently and quicker. You hit a button and get things done. With the New York, you have to think of strategies to break up your order. It is complicating rather than simplifying."
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Specialists simply do not make as much money trading stocks in pennies and therefore are less willing to risk their capital to ease the trades of others.
"When spreads were a quarter, specialists were willing to put more money on the line," Mr. Elkins said. Now they make less, so they are less willing to take in large orders from institutional investors. As a result, these investors "have difficulty moving large positions in the market because as soon as they show up to sell, all the bids disappear."
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Other complaints come from investors who try to trade Big Board stocks on regional exchanges, like the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.
One trader there said that when he submits a customer bid or offer on a stock to the intermarket trading system that is better than the price then trading on the New York Stock Exchange, it is routinely ignored. "The specialist is still obligated to fill national market system orders with any bids shown on the system, but we are shut out," the trader said. "This problem got to be laughable but there was no recourse whatsoever."
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Mr. Lek, for example, said that his customers were disturbed by what he called inadequate and imbalanced dispute resolution at the Big Board. When customers have a dispute, they must appeal for a ruling from a floor governor, or a senior member of the exchange. "The governor and the specialist are colleagues," Mr. Lek said. "The judges cannot be the specialist's colleagues. The exchange must have a truly objective on-floor dispute resolution system."
He said that in his experience, about one in 50 disputes is resolved in his customers' favor.
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Most investors or money managers interviewed for this article said that perhaps the biggest problem at the New York Stock Exchange was that its specialists have something close to a monopoly â competition has not forced the Big Board to become more investor-friendly.
Nasdaq, by contrast, has improved, investors say.
"The structure of Nasdaq has evolved rapidly because of competition from technology," Mr. Jenkins said. "The proof is there, if you open up and you have technology companies that can compete for the business, you are going to get a better market. There is no competition on the New York, so it's stale."