Observations on NYSE Program Trading

ZeroHedge ^ | May 02, 2009 | Tyler Durden

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Posted by Tyler Durden at 6:58 PM

Recently, there has been quite a bit of discussion of Goldman Sachs' principal program trading dominance in the NYSE, culminating with none other than Goldman Sachs themselves providing their perspective on the matter, via spokesman Ed Canaday:

["]The NYSE report that Zero Hedge discussed shows Goldman Sachs trading over 1 billion shares in the principal program trading category. What the table doesn’t show, but a deeper look at the numbers reveals is that the vast majority of this total is trades by our quantitative trading desk. This desk is participating in a relatively new NYSE program called Supplemental Liquidity Providers. The NYSE started the program to attract liquidity to the exchange. As an SLP, this the desk makes markets in NYSE stocks. They often do high-frequency trading (which is simply auto-quote market making) where they send out hundreds of “baskets” of stocks at one time. Program trading, as defined by the NYSE report is any strategy that sends out a “basket” of 15+stocks at one time. I am happy to discuss this with you if that description doesn’t make sense.["]

In order to dig deeper into Canaday's statement, Zero Hedge performed a historical analysis of NYSE Program Trading (PT) data (which is public) and came up with some curious observations. But before I get into the results, it makes sense to evaluate the facts behind Goldman's retort and in order to do that, let's first observe just what this Supplemental Liquidity Provider program is.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

GS' program has at times constituted 55% of the volume on the NYSE. Not just "program trading, but JUST GS' program trading.

Slightly arcane article, but there's a few things to learn about the mechanisms of stock trading for those interested.