Why trading on Wall Street is *really* not what it used to be...

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From the co-heads of Themis Trading, via The Big Picture, comes this great post on why trading on Wall-Street trading is not what you think it is (and certainly not what it used to be)
Congratulations on your IPO filing. We understand that you are faced with a difficult decision soon on where to list your stock.

[...] We hate to break the bad news to you but the fact is, in today’s market, it doesn’t matter where you list. Your stock is about to become one of the biggest casino chips on Wall Street. Ever hear the terms rebate arbitrage or latency arbitrage? Ever hear of colocation? Do you know what an exchange private data feed is? How about an actionable IOI or a dark pool? We bet you have probably never heard of these terms (maybe you have been too busy coding lately or ducking those Winklevoss twins). These terms are really what stock trading is all about nowadays.

Your stock will now be traded by high frequency traders who have an average holding period of 22 seconds. The majority of them won’t care about your earnings, or your new “likey like” button that you just launched. They won’t care about how many gazillion users you just signed up or how many eyeballs are on your site. They will only care about flipping your stock for a very small profit – millions of times per day. They will only care about getting paid a rebate 1/3 penny per share to “add liquidity” in your stock. They are not looking to invest in Facebook, they are looking at it as a tool to help them make money in their high speed arbitrage world.

Before you make your decision on where to list, also keep in mind that one third of your stock will be traded in dark pools that are off-exchange and away from the public’s eye . Know that even though the spread in your stock will be one penny (most of the time), your stock will not necessarily be liquid. Sure your stock will trade a lot of volume, but this is not the same as liquidity. Know that when your stock starts to move around intraday by 3-5%, there will be no one to call to ask what is going on.

[...] Best of luck on the IPO. If you pick the NYSE, know that the podium looks much bigger on television.

Could not agree more, FWIW...

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