NYSE = Chad Ridgeway?

Chad Ridgeway is the actual character in the Scottrade commercials, and he makes us laugh almost as hard as “Ghadafi, Martin Sheen, and Gary Busey” jokes. There are many different actual Scottrade commercials with Chad front and center, and they all basically have him in his self-interested glory, and highly transparent, despite his insistence that “our focus is on you, Dan…”

Well I can’t help but think of Chad as I watched my Twitter Feed yesterday, and specifically the NYSE_Euronext tweets late in the day:

NYSE_Euronext (NYX) NYSE Euronext

Look for NYSE’s co-branded TV spots on during the Sweet 16 of the @NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament!

5 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

NYSE_Euronext (NYX) NYSE Euronext

Watch NYSE’s co-branded TV campaign. See how NYSE excels & accelerates business http://bit.ly/g7naUT

5 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

So, apparently the NYSE has gotten the message that Investor Relation departments at stock issuers are not exactly convinced that the Exchanges care so much about helping them raise capital, versus the price-distorting needs of HFT firms. Apparently the NYSE has gotten the message that corporate issuers prefer to not have their stocks trade down 10% (or up 10%) in seconds, let alone trade at $0.01. We think they must have read Tim Quast’s article What Would A Bookie Do? written exactly two months ago.

This would explain why the Exchanges have just decided to stop focusing on the hyper nano-second traders that generate volume, but not liquidity. This would explain why the Exchanges have decided to allow trading to be slowed down in times of stress, so that cooler heads can prevail. This would explain why the Exchanges have denounced their collocation and market data revenue models, as those models only promoted steroidical volume that served HFT traders and the Exchanges’ bottom lines, and not the needs of investors and issuers.

Umm wait.. I have this wrong. They have corrected none of these things. Hang on I’ll get this… I just need to flip through my notes… one second please… and ummm here I got it… The Exchanges now care for corporate issuers because they are going to chip in money for GM NYSE co-branded commercials that will tell CNBC viewers how GM is getting it right by partnering with the NYSE to Excellerate their future.

Apparently Chad Ridgeway is doing the tweeting! “But you and me, we go way back! Why spoil the fun! The fun??!!!”

LOL.

Oh… and from Cantor’s Craig Cummings some real good stuff; I am so with him on the Book Club thing!

ATTENTION LADIES! .. I’m calling B.S. on this whole “ Book Club” scam.  My wife and her 8 friends had “Book Club” at my house.  3 of them never bought this month’s book.  I walked through the room twice during the night and they were talking about “Dancing with the Stars”.  This morning there were 7 empty bottles of wine.  These are DRINKING clubs, not book clubs.  If you ladies don’t agree to change the name I’m inviting all male readers to the Manhattan HOOTERS next week for Bible Study Club… I can’t believe I’m saying this but the FRENCH shot down a plane in the Libyan no-fly zone.  It must have been the Baron von Snoopy or something… There is talk that one of the Japanese reactors may have a crack, which may have led to water contamination.  Death toll now over 10,000.  Summer blackouts announced for Tokyo,  Muslim extremists torched a church in Ethiopia… explosions reported just outside Tripoli… Talk in Europe that Spain might be right behind Portugal in asking for a bailout ( reported in WSJ). Rocket attacks and bombings in Israel… So,  LETS HAVE A RALLY !!! There must REALLY be no other place to hide money right now…  … Don’t forget your Mega Millions Tickets boys and girls.  $300 million tonight!!

Where we left off 4:00pm EST:

INDU              12,170.56                                +84.54

SPX                 1,309.66                                  +12.12

CCMP             2,736.42                                  +38.12

Futures now at 7:00 am EST:

DJA                             +45

SPA                             +5.10

NDA                           +9.25

Key Data out today:

08:30:              GDP (expecting 3% growth)

08:30:              Personal Consumption

09:55:              Michigan Confidence

Since the prior close, some key stories:

–       Stock futures higher after ORCL and ACN beat.

–       Merkel Forces European Leaders to Cut Startup Capital of 2013 Bailout Fund (Bloomberg)

–       CDS market to face UK Insider Trading Investigation.

–       Foreigners piled in to Japanese equities after the earthquake.

–       Fukushima plant may have breached reactor core.

–       MENA unrest continues, mostly in Libya and Egypt. Syria will “look into” ending 38 year emergency rule. Yup. Uh huh. And the NYSE will look at dismantling Mahwah.

–       Barnes and Noble can’t find bids at 60 cents on the dollar?

–       RIMM adds GOOG aps to new tablet. This could get interesting.

–       RIMM disappoints with May guidance.

–       Equities have large $2.4 billion outflow this week from funds despite the rally.

–       BLK’s Larry Fink bullish.

–       WSJ article discusses how Larry Silverstein is hoping to use tax-free muni debt to pay for some of the reconstruction costs of the WTC but higher rates could jeopardize those plans.  WSJ   http://on.wsj.com/hXXhlx

–       MLB working on a deal to limit the amount of debt that each team can carry. Maybe they can teach our government?

Earnings:

Pre-market: KBH

After the Close: NONE

Significant Movers This Morning:

BODY +10%, CAN +6%, WTSLA +6%, ORCL +3%, THQI +4%, RIMM -11%, HS -5%, FINL -2%

This entry was written by sarnuk, posted on March 25, 2011 at 7:30 am, filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.