Publisher's Synopsis
The US stock markets were designed to handle a large volume of small orders for individuals who paid brokers well to do their business. Today, they process a small volume of large orders from institutional investors, most of whom pay their brokers only a few cents a share. The community of brokers gets even by trading against its customers, often secretly or through hidden nominees, while the institutions are seeking new settings for trading without informing their brokers. And the SEC has proved unwilling or unable to step in and police these off-the-floor activities.;This insidious phenomenon - the growing tendency of brokers to trade against their customers - affects the investor.;This book chronicles the history and implications of these changes, which burst into public consciousness in the summer of 1991 with the revelations of Salomon Brothers' abuse of its customers in the US bond market. The author, a financial writer, introduces a cast of characters, from Leo Melamed, born in a Polish shtel - who as head of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange made some people very rich by inventing a cadre of arbitrage traders to William J. Casey, former spymaster, who as chairman of the SEC engineered the end of fixed broker commissions.;Here is a close look at the world of finance as it existed before and after the computer era - and a sober analysis of what may have been lost, financially and otherwise. Martin Mayer is the author of "The Greatest Ever Bank Robbery" and "The Bankers".
