Block Sales Institutional investor frequently trade blocks of tens of thousands of shares of stock. Table 3.3 shows that block transactions of over 10,000 shares account for a good deal of all trading on the NYSE. The larger block transactions are often too large for specialists to handle, as they do not wish to hold such large blocks of stock in their inventory. For example, one large block transaction in 2006 was for $972 million worth of shares in Direct TV.
“Block houses” have evolved to aid in the placement of larger block trades. Block houses are brokerage firms that specialize in matching block buyers and sellers. Once a buyer and a seller have been matched, the block is sent to the exchange floor where specialists execute the trade. If a buyer cannot be found, the block house might purchase all or part of a block sale for its own account. The block house then can resell the shares to the public.
You can observe in Table 3.3 that the volume of block trading has declined dramatically in the last decade. This reflects changing trading practices since the advent of electronic markets. Large trades are now much more likely to be split up into multiple small trades and executed electronically. The lack of depth on the electronic exchanges reinforces this pattern: because the inside quote on these exchanges is valid only for small trades, it gener¬ally is preferable to buy or sell a large stock position in a series of smaller transactions.
SuperDot and Electronic Trading on the NYSE SuperDot is an electronic order¬routing system that enables NYSE member firms to send market and limit orders directly to the specialist over computer lines. In 2006, it processed about 13 million trades per day, which were executed in a matter of seconds. The vast majority of all orders are submitted electronically through SuperDot, but these tend to be smaller orders, and account for about 70% of NYSE trading volume.
SuperDot is especially useful to program traders. A program trade is a coordinated purchase or sale of an entire portfolio of stocks. Many trading strategies (such as index arbitrage, a topic we will study in Chapter 23) require that an entire portfolio of stocks be purchased or sold simultaneously in a coordinated program. SuperDot is the tool that enables many trading orders to be sent out at once and executed almost simultaneously.
The NYSE has recently stepped up its commitment to electronic trading, instituting a fully automated trade-execution system called DirectPlus or Direct + . It matches orders against the inside bid or ask price with execution times of less than one-half second. In 2006, Direct + handled about 17% of NYSE trade volume, largely because the system would accept only smaller trades (up to 1,099 shares). However, the NYSE is in the process of eliminating size and other limitations on Direct + orders, so the fraction of shares cleared
electronically is quickly rising. In stocks for which the size limitation was eliminated in the latter part of 2006, electronic trades rose to 80% of share volume within 4 months.
Settlement Since June 1995, an order executed on the exchange must be settled within 3 working days. This requirement is often called T + 3, for trade date plus 3 days. The pur¬chaser must deliver the cash, and the seller must deliver the stock to the broker, who in turn delivers it to the buyer’s broker. Frequently, a firm’s clients keep their securities in street name, which means the broker holds the shares registered in the firm’s own name on behalf of the client. This convention can speed security transfer. T + 3 settlement has made such arrangements more important: It can be quite difficult for a seller of a security to complete delivery to the purchaser within the 3-day period if the stock is kept in a safe deposit box.
Settlement is simplified further by the existence of a clearinghouse. The trades of all exchange members are recorded each day, with members’ transactions netted out, so that each member need transfer or receive only the net number of shares sold or bought that day. An exchange member then settles with the clearinghouse instead of individually with every firm with which it made trades.
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