The NY Times is reporting a stunning development in the last hour. The Germany Stock exchange plans to take over the New York Stock Exchange.
First the disclaimer – I worked for NASDAQ from 1998-2002 as a manager of software design and supervising programmers for the systems that trade stocks – so I arrive with industry knowledge, and a lot of bias. (I previously designed a electronic futures trading system used by the Chicago Board of Trade). One of the things I said on a regular basis was to remind people that the “N” in NASD stood for “National” – as in United States.
Yesterday was the stunning news that the Toronto Stock Exchange and the London (England) Stock Exchange are merging.
In some ways, the NYSE’s end is anti-climatic – several years ago, EuroNext transformed the NYSE from an ineffcient manual good ole boys network on the trading floor in Manhattan to an electronic trading network in Chicago capable of matching orders globally in microseconds using software created by Euronext that was a generation ahead of any American system. My goal at Nasdaq was to drag them kicking and screaming at least into the early 1990s.
NASDAQ likewise blew its chance by chasing global dreams in Asia and London, only to wind up in debt it couldn’t pay and surrendered with a whimper to their debtors in the United Arab Emirates.
The final battle of World War II just ended. American capitalism is now just a memory. Welcome your European Socialist overlords.
Step right up – everything in America is for sale.
Using the money the Federal Reserve is lending out for free.
And if you had any shred of hope that Republicans would defend US Sovereignty, Chairman of the House Financial Services Oversight Committee Spencer Bachus of Alabama says the Germans make really good cars and employ a lot of people in his state, so it sounds good to him.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110210-718137.html
Zo tell me, schweinhund, you haf family in der Vaterland? Ver vere you during ze var?
I always wondered if the hippies in the 1960s knew the historical significance of the Volkswagen – their iconic vehicle of choice.
Word comes that the CME (the combination of the Chicago Mercantile exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade) plans to launch its own plan to take over the NYSE Euronext exchange, possibly in combination with NASDAQ.
So the NYSE Euronext/CME/NASDAQ OMX or the NYSEENCMENDQOMX for short will put every financial products exchange under one organization (and 10 different regulators) / truly then it will be too big to fail!