The future of floor-trading at the New York Stock Exchange was called into question on Thursday when Duncan Niederauer, incoming chief executive of NYSE Euronext, said he planned to change the role of NYSE marketmakers, known as specialists, and two of the floor’s seven specialist firms quit the exchange. The role of specialists, who match buyers with sellers, has been under threat in recent years amid explosive growth of automated trading. Mr Niederauer, who takes over from John Thain as chief executive of NYSE Euronext on December 1, said he would change the role of the specialists by introducing a replacement for the so-called “hybrid model”, introduced last year by Thain, which combines floor and electronic trading.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 5:30 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with nyse. Edit this entry.