Trading Systems OVERSTATED: Electronic Communications Networks Calling Cards Although after-hours ECNs are credited with revolutionizing the once-inflexible opening hours at the exchanges, they may be short-lived. (See "Stock Around the Clock," p297.) Reason: The NYSE and Nasdaq will both offer trading over an ECN in the near future, which will dry up the liquidity that has kept the nine ECNs afloat. "The ECN, as we know it, is dead," says Doug Atkin, head of Instinet, the largest ECN operating in the United States. Instead, ECNs will expand products and tie up with other financial service companies. International Calls UNDERRATED: International Securities Exchange The newly formed ISE — where investors will trade 600 of the most popular options cheaper and faster than on the traditional exchanges — begins electronic options trading on March 24, 2000, and should get SEC approval by the end of the year. (In which case it will be the first new exchange cleared in 26 years.) By introducing electronic options trading, the ISE helped break up the cozy monopoly of the four existing options exchanges. Under a "gentlemen's agreement," options on many marquee companies (Intel, Microsoft, Compaq) have traded on only one floor. Investors should be thankful that the ISE will help narrow the shameful spreads that market makers put up.
Students purchase phone cards to contact with their friends, colleagues, in the most affordable manner probable.
Calling Cards