Day 2: Morning TD Ameritrade Speakers
Submitted by Grunden Financial Advisory, Inc on February 5th, 2010Ricky attended the TD Ameritrade Institutional National Conference in Orlando and below are highlights from day 2 morning speakers and sessions. This includes a conversation with Terry Bradshaw and session on “dark pools”.
Terry Bradshaw
Four-time Super Bowl Champion and co-host of Fox NFL Sunday. High points from his motivational speech:
- Be nice, smile a lot, be prepared, have a great attitude.
- Take charge of the day, life is short, we will die, we are checking out of here, why be average?
- Want to get ahead in 2010? Take charge of yourself and smile a lot.
- The only thing we can control is us.
- Keep things in perspective. Keep things simple.
- Everything starts with us. Successful people figure it out.
- Say thank-you to somebody else, study the heart of others.
Patrick Lencioni
Author of “5 Dysfunctions of a Team” and President of a management-consulting firm focused on organizational health.
“People need to be reminded more than they are instructed.” – Samuel Adams
- Keep things simple.
- Two requirements for success:
- Has to be Smart (Strategic, Marketing, Finance, Technology)…left brain.
- Has to be Healthy (minimal politics, minimal confusion, high moral, high productivity, low turnover)…right brain.
- Healthy organization
- Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team.
- Create organizational clarity
- Over-communicate clarity.
- Reinforce clarity through Human Systems.
- Team work is a strategic decision.
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (good size of a team is 3-9 people):
- Absence of Trust. Solution: leader has to go first.
- Fear of Conflict. Solution: mine for conflict.
- Lack of Commitment. Solution: force clarity and closure).
- Avoidance of Accountability. Solution: confront difficult issues.
- Inattention to Results. Solution: focus on collective outcomes.
Flash Orders, Dark Pools, and High Frequency Trading
Christopher Nagy, Managing Director TD Ameritrade
What are the current trading themes today?
- Dark Pools.
- Non-public trading interest (dark pools).
- Hidden liquidity dark pools provide.
- Useful for institutions who desire to buy/sell a large stock holding without adversely affecting the stock price in the public stock exchanges.
- ATS’s or Alternative Trading Systems
- Creates “dark pools”.
- Highly computerized trading mechanisms.
What is the trading landscape today?
- Ten stock exchanges, four big ones.
- Seven option exchanges.
- 53 Dark Pools (ATS’s).
- Dark pools gaining share and no end in sight.
- Result: creates a fragmented market (in 2005, NYSE made 75% of trades; today 28%).
Are these practices bad?
- Symptoms of our evolutionary market structure.
- Our markets operate more efficiently than ever before.
- 1987 market crash, took days to unwind and post trades. 2008 crash, complete by end of day trading.
- High frequency trading and co-location.
- Horse and buggy used to deliver trades from one place to another, then came telegraph.
- Telegraph killed the “horse and buggy” method and fear of manipulation, but market got better.
- Now orders placed quicker at lower cost.
- Execution speed in 2003 was 8 seconds per trade, now 2 seconds or less. Pure improvement is 80% factor.