It's an apples and oranges comparison with regard to prop vs retail but, when Instinet bought Protrader in Oct of 01 the first thing they did was start closing down locations. By the last count on their website Protrader was down to just three "true" locations. Denver, Irvine, and Austin. I'm not saying it was all about the buyout, because the all retail firms have had a lot of attrition but certainly when the deal first closed the first closings came down via a mandate from the top from what I understand and it affected quite a number of their traders. That begs the question, why did Instinet or Reuters pay so damn much for Protrader? The bubble had already deflated to a large extent. For that kind of money you would certainly think they could have built their own software but who knows? Maybe Sunguard wanted Andover for the Hammer? They (Sungard) are pretty much a software type firm right? (I know very little about Sunguard). We traders all figured some of it had to be that they were paying for getting all the daytraders (the clearing bucks) which would would also send more trades through gr8trade which would probably integrate well with INCA (instinets ecn) but then they started rapidly closing up places. Note: Instinet did integrate some type of proprietary routing into Portal (gr8trade) a few months ago. Note also however that at the time INCA was losing a lot of ecn volume to island, they ofcourse since bought or merged with island. Anyway, I don't know anything about Andover/Sunguard but just thought I would mention the buyout above because it certainly affected traders with that firm and what they did didn't really make much sense and to me still doesn't make that much sense. Maybe these trading platforms are a lot more expensive to develop and get people to trade on than I think. I know that instinet wanted their own platform however to tie into their clearing operation and apparently from that standpoint they got what they wanted as ETG recently switched and they will probably add more clearing with daytrading type firms going foward because of it. Andover ofcourse already has a platform that ties into their clearing. That begs the question, is Sungard anything like instinets parent reuters? Not at first glance but maybe their are some parallels there. Just rambling on here folks. As I said I don't know much at all about Sungard so I could be totally of base. Just pontificating (or whatever the word is).
The truth should be stated indeed, but it should be stated by the company. If the management keeps the process under wraps, they should expect rumors to be floating around. I cannot possibly see how the information provided by caliber can hurt Andover traders. They are likely kept in the dark just like the rest of us. The management may not like rumors or leaks, but this is the least of my (and I am pretty sure majority of this board) concerns. In cases like that rumors turn out to be true more often then not, and information coming from the management is more often then not a lie. And the employees (or traders in this case) who believe the management often learn the truth by finding a pink slip on their desk. In this case Caliber has not been proven wrong yet, your statement that "Whatever happens with a buyout or merger will not affect the daytrading side of Andover" is no less heresay than what Caliber stated. If what you say is true you are obviously associated with the process, why then don't you have it posted on Andover's website.
Good post. You are 100% correct, my statements are as much hearsay as Caliber's. The difference is that I have been with Andover for five years, and he trades at another firm with his own agenda.
Calibertrader You and a few other firm owners jumped all over that other thread. I read about 50 million things that could go wrong if there was a merger. Yet saw not a single thing that could prove to be beneficial. Which is stating your opinion through your eyes as a competitor as there could be some serious drawbacks and benefits if a merger were to happen. You run a firm, you should know better than to EVER comment on what could be inside info. You've taken the Series 24 haven't you? If somebody were to trade on that info and make a profit you are also liable. A listed stock in the S&P 500 is definitely something you can't talk about publicly if you know something till it is announced. Be careful regulators read these boards too. Now I commented on other thread This was a rumor it was not based on facts. What was rather interesting about that thread was that over 90% of the posters were competing firms or posters who have been around 2 or 3 months tops.....hmmmm??? Don't see that on all the other threads? Makes me wonder about a posters intentions. and again now instead of hearing all the bad things that won't happen as you stated before..........well now I hear about how bad it is. Make up your mind. Owners of trading firms lose credibility when they say one thing and later on do something else/ or say something else. Now you can speculate all you want about the firm. Andover with over 1200 traders is larger than quite a few others. While you were commenting before about how they will be closing all the offices LA expanded with another one. I don't react to what I hear from a message board nor do I recommend anyone else do either. Robert
forwarding info here is ok. isn't that what this site is for? and if a firm is getting bought out, its rarely true that some parts of the company would be unaffected especially when they have no interest in that end of it assuming that is the story. fyi, tradescape said the exact same thing about Etrade and look what happened. so, as a trader, i would want to know if there are things being considered with the firm i'm with. stop bashing the guy. take it for what its worth...INFO.
RTharp, let me clear a few things up for you. The sad part is everyone is accusing me of having an agenda against Andover. What you don't know, is I've actually recommended your office to people in Socal that have sent resumes to us for interviews. Why, cause I like Lynx and have nothing against them. Several newbies who have interviewed with us and wanted to stay in NY, I have recommended and given them the phone number to the NY office. I'm not trading on this info, I'm just passing along what I heard. If anything this is good news for the traders there, as others on this board have already told us horror stories about buyout. If you read the rules of inside info, I must let the compliance officer know, which I already did. Since the info is not from the inside and from someone who stays current on what's going on, it's hearsay. But since the first thread was closed until further info was available, I started this one to let everyone know what new news is going around the street. The point of all this, is to see if anyone else heard the same news, this way, as a group, we can get to the bottom of what's going on. The point of message boards is for opinions. Again, go over all my posts, and you'll never see any postings that bad mouth Andover. The fact also still remain that everytime someone has looked into buying out Andover, they've all backed out at the last minute after doing their due diligence. This is a FACT!!! Andover did close alot of offices as did every other firm on the street. They kept the profitable offices, and expanded them. Nothing negative there, just you twisting my words. I'm just stating facts. Hold has also closed many of their unprofitable offices around the country. I left Andover to become my own entrepreneur. I still talk to people at Andover about possibly clearing through them in the future. So I have no reason to piss them off. I'm independent, and will clear through whichever firm offers the best deal. I have only been a member of this board since Sept, but that's when I was first introduced to this board by a friend of mine. If you read the bulk of my threads, they're actually beneficial to the readers of the thread. The only reason the thread goes off topic each time is because the Andover traders attack anyone who posts anything about Andover, except for positive things. There are people on this board who have stated that the info was appreciated, yet the only defense that the Andover traders have is that I have another agenda. Next time I'll just pass the info on to another poster here, and have them post it. Then you guys can run around asking him questions about details. You posted all about how great Echo was and then left them. What will you say if you get a better deal elsewhere? So please don't talk about credibility.
HAHAHAH Robet someone finally called you out! I couldn't have said it better (or typed it better). Oh, Please ...dont ask me about echo I'm no longer affiliated with them. Feel free to ask me about anything else.
i trade 10 million shares per month and i'm looking for a better deal then the penny/share i pay... could you help me?