Friday, November 18, 2016

Matty Levine says we need a tyrading pit for corporate bonds

Bloomberg: It's a market! It's the bond market. People expect a certain amount of dishonesty, of fudging, of bluffing, of concealing information, of looking out for one's own best interests. But those excuses don't feel as good these days as they used to. The basic small-scale dishonesty that has long lubricated the bonds markets may now just be illegal. There have been criminal and civil cases against bond traders who misrepresented their positions to customers in ways that "have been tolerated for years." The new-issue book-building and allocation process, with its own customary mild dishonesty, looks ripe for disruption.
Why not adapt GS Simon platform to become a full blown trading pit?  This:
Business Insider: For example, one of the apps called SIMON — which stands for Structured Investment Marketplace and Online — helps clients learn about structured investments and execute transactions.
A client would previously have had to call up the structured-products desk and spend a lot of time on the phone going over models. With the app, they're able to save time.
The geeks at GS know about trading pit, they know that SIMON will eventually become a maximum entropy pit, why fake it? Go right there and make it happen.. 

No comments: