Hank Greenberg of AIG also critized the system in today's Financial Times, saying that Specs are not necessarily properly capitilized to keep an orderly market in all stocks, like AIG whose market cap is now ~150B and has ~2B shares outstanding. The article below gives who is likely to benefit from switching the NYSE to an all electronic exchage. http://www.forbes.com/business/2003/10/07/cx_lw_1007nyse.html nitro PS the 1 at the end of the title is because the ET database, MySql, had troubles when I tried posting this thread the first time and put up an empty thread, so in order to keep the name the same I added a 1 at the end.
IMO good old boy Hank is less than genuine with respect to his statement about NYSE specialists. I suspect this man is spinning a rationalization about his apparent conflict of interest in asking Grasso to pressure the specialist to keep the price of AIG's stock stable. (Hank was on Grasso's compensation committee at the NYSE). If Hank really believed what he's saying why hasn't he already moved the stock to Nasdaq where it would be traded electronically? Keep in mind that this is the same AIG that was recently and successfully sued by the SEC for selling a fraudulent insurance product (to defraud shareholders in other companies) and the same AIG that refused to cooperate with the SEC during that investigation.
Hank Greenberg is the eminent "Dean" of wall street. If he says that the specialist system gots to go - then it gots to go! Regardless of your name, Hugh G., you couldn't even hold his jock strap End of story
Greenburg's a freakin' liar... http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/031006/0038000022_1.html (From the article) "...Mr. Greenberg, 78 years old, complained a number of times to Mr. Grasso that his specialist had at times not purchased enough shares to quell volatile trading on the exchange floor.... ...The spokesman added that Mr. Greenberg was unaware that his complaints about AIG trading over the years may have prompted Mr. Grasso to speak to AIG's specialist or encourage him to buy extra stock..." I'm sure Greenburg isn't the type of guy who just likes to hear himself complain...
I have no doubt that Hank is the eminent Dean of the good old boy club on wall street and he probably enjoys the privileges that go along with that; conflict of interest, corruption, fraud. I certainly hope the specialist system goes away. However, it will not achieve the price support/stabilization for AIG that Hank is dreaming about. Lastly, Yuck! Why would you think that anyone would want to hold up the jockstrap of an old man with a permanently flaccid penis, or hold up anyone elses jockstrap for that matter? Yuck!