Quote from Pabst:
I certainly hope that Chicago futures exchanges have enjoyed in their 150 years of existence, an adherence to higher moral and ethical standards than freakin' Nasdaq market-makers! As recently as ..well.. TODAY, crude, gold, cattle, soybeans etal are trading in the most transparent possible marketplace, open outcry. Brokers who are filling paper in those pits for commercial accounts will freely tell counter parties "who they were." What makes you think that just because we're now on the screen, with the benefit of FIFO, that anonymity is favorable?
You speak of "no reason to know". I'm not asking for the account on the trade, I'm asking which clearing exchange member traded with another exchange member. In a world that allows home sale records, data that includes individual's names, addresses and financial records to be transmitted publicly on-line or in a daily newspapers RE section, the CME and CBOT should feel that a completed trade is in the limited public domain. In the most liquid markets in the world, no participant has a right to know if a firm is cornering a market? In gold they can know. In crude they can know. But Treasuries and indices by virtue of the screen should be exempt from that scrutiny? I think not. Does a shareholder have a right to know "privileged" information? I say in most cases, yes. So yea let me and everyone who cares know if it's Gelber or Goldman on the otherside.
Someday, a rogue event is going to occur. Either a series a few hundred 1000 lot market orders or a credit failure, what have you. Not to mention mega-theft. When that happens you'll tell me that transparency is openness not secrecy.