More Dark Pools: The Secret Stock Market

Story from MarketWatch...

The secret stock market
'Dark pools' and other new-age exchanges rewrite the rules, under the radar

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Fourteen floors above Seventh Avenue, in an office more than a mile from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, a trumpet sounds reveille over a loudspeaker.

Liquidnet Holdings Inc., an alternative trading system used by institutions, has just executed a block trade of a million shares or more.

Unlike the bulk of trading in stocks, this trade was made anonymously and was executed outside of the market where retail investors and institutions meet. And unlike a trade on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, no one will ever know who put a million shares up for sale and who just bought them.

Liquidnet is one of dozens of new private trading networks that -- in just two years' time -- have ushered in a sea change that challenges Wall Street's top institutions while posing vexing questions for regulators and investors alike. [more at below url]

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