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NYSE Floor Traders: A Disappearing Breed

January 15, 2013

[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

New York Stock Exchange Floor Traders are dwindling in number.  That fact hit home with last month's $8.2 billion purchase of The Big Board by the IntercontinentalExchange, or ICE.  Just 5 years ago in 2007, there were 3,000 market makers and traders.  Now there are 300.

Over the past decade, the Big Board's one-time monopoly in stock trading has declined to about 20% of its overall industry volume today due to rival electronic exchanges and the advent of high-frequency trading.  Though ICE will pursue new regulations more favorable to the NYSE than upstart high-frequency rivals, Floor Traders would appear to be past their prime.

"There is always the possibility – and I underscore possible-  that the NYSE itself might end up on the market a few years from now as they rationalize their operations." -- Thomas Caldwell, a major NYSE and ICE shareholder.

For further details, go to [NY Post, 1/13/13].