Looks like Island might not exist as a separate entity for much longer anyway. saxon =========================================== Instinet Closes Island Deal Fri Sep 20, 6:19 PM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Agency brokerage Instinet Group Inc. , which runs an electronic share trading network, said on Friday that it closed its acquisition of rival Island ECN for about $389 million. The merger of the two is expected to create the largest alternative electronic trading network in stocks listed on the Nasdaq stock market. New York-based Instinet agreed to buy Island in June for $508 million in stock. The deal will dilute the stake held by global news and information company Reuters Group Plc to 62 percent from 83 percent. Reuters expects to receive a special dividend payment from Instinet of $207 million on or about Oct. 3, the company said. The deal, valued at Instinet's closing stock price on Friday, was about $389 million, after the deduction of about $13 million in stock options, Reuters spokeswoman Nancy Bobrowitz said. Instinet closed down 8 cents, or 1.7 percent, at $4.73.
I agree with your statement wholeheartedly, this is rather unfair to the general public (by that I mean us traders) and gives the specialists too much of an edge. DW, what are your feelings regarding the merger of INCA & ISLD? I have heard that institutional players are not very happy about it because they are used to being able to trade large lots with each other over instinet but now they are going to see a whole bunch of "customer" orders from the general public. What are your thoughts?
ECN's are not suppose to give rebates for added liquidity on listed stocks, ISLD by purchasing the Cin exchange is able to rebate about 6 cents per 100 shares through market data revenue. The sec opposes this because listed markets do not give rebates to facilitate trading on thier system. They (specialists) feel that they are at a "liquidity" disadvantage because of this.
I agree with your statement wholeheartedly, this is rather unfair to the general public (by that I mean us traders) and gives the specialists too much of an edge. DW, what are your feelings regarding the merger of INCA & ISLD? I have heard that institutional players are not very happy about it because they are used to being able to trade large lots with each other over instinet but now they are going to see a whole bunch of "customer" orders from the general public. What are your thoughts?