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High-Frequency Trading: What's Next?

Let's pause for a moment, if the lightning pace of high-frequency trading permits us to do so. In the U.S. today, high-frequency, electronic, computer-aided trading accounts for as much as 65 percent of all stock-volume activity. Computers whiz and hum.  Black boxes send out trading orders in thousands and millions of shares, and rout orders to exchanges and "dark pools" all over the globe. Execution occurs in fractions of a second. Algorithms and programs determine what to buy, when to buy, when to sell, when to buy and sell at the same time and on which one of a dozen or more electronic exchanges. Algorithms provide guidance on volume, prices to show, prices to execute, and prices, if only for a few seconds, to report as "bids" or "offers." High-frequency traders dart in and out of trading positions in seconds. Some firms buy in one venue and sell in another. They earn pennies per share, but generate large profits via big volume--tens of thousands of...

Goldman Tweaks Banking's Ladder

Goldman Sachs leads; everybody else follows. Or most everybody else. So it has been for the past couple of decades in how corporate and investment banks structure themselves and recruit, develop, promote and pay for talent. And so it has been in how banks--from Goldman to regional banks involved in corporate banking and foreign banks that set themselves up on American shores--organize banking units. Traditionally since the 1980s, most corporate and investment banks (including also their trading, cash-management and processing units) recruit finance professionals into the following "programs," "classes" or "levels": 1. Analysts (those with BA or BS degrees) who join a two-three-year program and who virtually learn from scratch financial analysis, accounting, capital markets and banking on the job, while toiling away long hours doing the dirtiest of work for banking teams (spreadsheets, analysis, projections, document preparation, document printing, research...

What Does QE3 Mean?

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Someone asked me QE3 announced during the market peak, will the stock price go higher? To answer the question, let us understand what QE means. QE stands for Quantitative Easing. It is a kind of monetary policy that increases the money supply in the fin ancial institutions, so that the financial institutions have more funds at lower cost for lending. The key here is "more lending", so that consumers borrow money to spend and firms borrow money to invest, all these will drive at more econo mic activities and finally reflects in the GDP figures. Hence, whether QE3 will work depends on the will ingness of the consumers and producers to borrow money to expand their economic activities. Let's take a look at the following charts: The first chart is the US consumer confidence index. We can see the general improvement in the confidence level in the consumer sector. However, the US business confidence (Chart 2) is rather weak with figures below 50 for the last 3 months. This may m...

Knocking Down Doors in Venture Capital

Jenn Wei, a Stanford MBA who once worked in investment banking, is now researching, chasing and negotiating deals in technology as a venture capitalist at Bloomberg Capital.  Last week, in postings that appeared widely in business media, including  VentureBeat.com , she wrote about the startling, but not surprising lack of women in venture capital--in Silicon Valley (California), in Silicon Alley (New York) and at other pivotal venture spots around the country. She reminded us of the glaring scarcity of females at negotiating tables, within network huddles when ideas are bantered about, and in closed-door meetings where entrepreneurs, deal-doers and investors decide the right amounts for an early-round investment to support the next new thing. She offered a few reasons why women are not prominent in the industry and dared to propose solutions. She said women desperately need role models in the industry and industry participants need to take time to understand the likes, intere...

Considerable Cautions While Opting a Financial Loan

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Sometimes at some part of our lives we face financial problems. You may fall short of cash to meet our needs and wants like paying our monthly bills, medical bills, buying a car or home. To fulfil our needs and wants we look for sources which offer financial support. Loans are one of the best sources which assist you financially to achieve your goal. However you need to be very careful and consider certain points when choosing which loans to go for. ` First of all determine which type of loan will suit your needs. If you require small amounts of money then you can go for short term loans. If you need instant cash then you can opt for paydayloans . If you want to finance for a new home then you can opt for long term mortgage loans. Taking a long term loan for smaller requirements does not make a sense. So, determine your needs and choose accordingly.  Consider the loans with lower interest rates. Don’t ever consider loans with high interest rates for a small advantage that they are ...

On Campus: Getting Back to School

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Yale SOM's new campus: One year away In late August, there's always a vibrancy on the campuses at business schools (including the Consortium 17 ) across the country as they prepare for the fall sessions.  New MBA students arrive on campus--wide-eyed, anxious, and excited about new experiences, new classmates and the challenges of in-depth study of finance, accounting, marketing, policy and recruiting.  Second-year students arrive after the intensity of summer internships (and with full-time offers for the fortunate ones), ready to resume studies in cherished, more interesting electives after the core courses are done.  Professors and deans get excited, too, as they are buoyed by the interests, eagerness and dreams of students. Always there is electricity during the early days of school in the fall, until students drift into an October grind, when it's time to ward off the pressures of upcoming midterms and recruiting chores. But for now, it's August, and there are new f...

Morgan Stanley: Can It Please Analysts?

A financial institution strives hard to get it right--stay out of the headlines, focus on core businesses, hire talented people, manage risks, oversee diverse sources of revenue, rationalize costs and allocate capital properly. And despite all efforts, the institution is not a darling among equity analysts, investors, and market watchers.  Analysts and the markets sense something is amiss. They recognize  the organization is fine-tuned and structured appropriately. They reason the right managers are at the top managing a complex, global business. But they sense an undetected vulnerability. The bank experiences a periodic, surprising earnings stumble, and the market declares degrees of doom. The company is admired, its history revered, but analysts are biased toward a high probability that losses will occur from nowhere. Sounds like Morgan Stanley . While some financial institutions have been whipped soundly in business headlines the past few years ( Goldman Sachs, Bank of Amer...