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The Next (Lack Of) Trading Casualty: Nomura's Brand New $270 Million Trading Floor
Over the past several months (and years) we have been warning that the ongoing collapse in trading volumes, in part due to the lack of faith in capital markets that now have all the integrity of a rigged Vegas casino from the 1960s, in part due to investors' need to monetize assets in a world in which wages simply refuse to keep up with prices, will have not only irreversible implications on the shape of market structure, but also substantial consequences when it comes to the layout of modern banks, and associated up and downstream variables, such a jobs, real estate, support professions, municipal taxes and much more. Nowhere is this more evident (for now at least) than in the massive corporate reorganization taking place at Nomura's American division, which among many other things is about to lose its brand new $270 million trading floor even before a single trader set foot in it.
Reuters explains what we have been predicting for years:
Nomura Holdings' decision to scale back its equity trading business halts its ambitious U.S. growth plans and creates a Manhattan real-estate conundrum for Japan's biggest brokerage.
Nomura said Thursday it will move its equities execution business in the Americas, Asia and Europe to its New York-based Instinet arm as part of a broader cost-cutting plan. It will no longer buy and sell stocks using its own capital, but instead match clients' buy and sell trading orders through Instinet.
The shift reflects a broader effort by brokerage firms to reshape equities operations that have been battered by years of low trading volume and falling commissions. Companies ranging from Bank of America and Goldman Sachs to much smaller firms have been hit, and many have been trimming large, capital-intensive operations.
And while jawboning (so prevalent lately) and threatening of layoffs is one thing, it is something totally different to see what it means in practice:
The firm recently signed a 20-year lease to accommodate the growth it expected in New York. It is moving next July from lower Manhattan into 820,000 square feet spread over 16 floors to a Midtown building called Worldwide Plaza. Nomura has already spent $270 million preparing the space for trading and other operations.
As recently as May, a senior Nomura executive in the United States said the new space would allow the firm to increase staffing by another 50 percent.
That's unlikely to occur. Nomura said Thursday the Americas will bear 21 percent of its cost cuts. Personnel cuts will account for about 45 percent of the global savings, Nomura said. Specific decisions about layoffs have not yet been made, according to a spokesman.
In other words kiss the principal equity trading group goodbye, in process reducing market volumes even futher. So who will survive? The ultra low, flow margin business Instinet which Nomura bought for $1.2 billion in 2007.
For more than a year, equities traders and salespeople had expected Instinet to be folded into Nomura's broader securities operation, which includes research from 17 analysts. The Japanese firm bought Instinet in 2007 for about $1.2 billion, and in the past year has cut about 200 employees to cope with shrinking profits as trading volume and commissions fell industrywide.
Now, though, Nomura's business is being folded into Instinet, which itself recently moved into almost 100,000 square feet on three floors in another Midtown building, which it had leased until August 2020.
Nomura will continue to offer "non-execution" services such as lending to hedge funds, selling convertible securities and offering futures and options through its equities unit, but the majority of its employees are involved in trade execution.
Instinet executes about 5 percent of equities traded in the United States, and expects its market share to grow after the Nomura integration. However, the overall pie is shrinking.
...
"Agency brokers" such as Instinet, which do not trade with their own capital when buying or selling from clients, generate very thin profit margins that have been squeezed further by three years of declining trading volume and a decade-long plunge in commission costs.
Trading commissions paid by mutual funds, hedge funds and other institutional traders have slipped from about 15 cents a share in the 1970s to less than a penny a share over electronic systems such as Instinet.
Global fees paid by clients for trade executions dropped from $300 billion in 2007 to $220 billion in 2011, according to consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
Considering that Knight's near death experience in the beginning of August resulted in stock volumes dropping to decade lows in the month, all that remains is for Instinet to go dark next, which it most certainly will once the group no longer generates any profits as the race to the margin bottom among agency brokers begins in earnest, which in turn will make the already broken equity market completely uninhabitable and a trading venue merely for Bernanke and his ilk, whereby the Princeton professor does all in his power to push the mark to myth value of America's very much insolvent pensions and retirement accounts into the stratosphere to perpetuate for at least a few more year the illusion that America's welfare state is not totally and utterly broke.
As for Nomura's traders about to start receiving unemployment benefits, we have good news: consider this a first adopter advantage - you will have some extra time to learn valuable skills which none of your competitors currently sitting behind Bloomberg terminals but who too will soon be seeing pink slips, have, and will thus be at least modestly more marketable in a new normal in which nothing is what it used to be.
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Annnnnnd, it's gone...wait, that wasn't supposed to happen to us!
No mora for you.
And now for continued coverage from around the world...
(stay with it for the money shot at 9:00)
Healthcare under socialist regimes: the patient comes last.
http://www.thelocal.se/43048/20120906/
That's not socialist, that's just stupidity. I've worked for companies in capitalist/democratic situations (especially in banking) where staff were given verbal and written warnings if they didn't take lunch at a specified time.
and everything is fixed, lunch starts at 12:00 and by 13:00 one is supposed to be ready at his/her desk... it's called capitalistic/democratic discipline! applied to sheople.
You know when you go to have a major surgery and they put you deep under, then the anesthesiologist breaks to go out for a little svampsoppa, kroppkakor, and gravad lax lunch while you die?
I hate when that happens.
Been there, done that. took one surgery long in the past that required long and deep sleep. felt the very moment of strange state between consciousness and unconsciousness.
poor soul, perhaps at 72 he was regarded as expendable, a kind of collateral damage.
I had a colonoscopy and the doc was a little stingy on the general.. I started to come to at a very inopportune time. He caught it fairly quickly, but you don’t ever want to know what that feels like.
I will stipulate a near death experience the next time.
I think what you want to do is use properly Nomura technology and the benefits it offers NY as geographic location. The other issues are the realm of speculation.
MSM focus on gold as safe haven about to unleash "black friday" masses frantically onto the gold market:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-is-putin-stockpiling-gold-2012-09-0...
Except there has been no decline in British hegemony, it is more dominant than ever, only more covert.
thanks for the highlight, Ahmeexnal
feel strange to read such news about Putin and Gold from marketwatch.com, The Wall Street Journal. Thing will be more comprehendible if it's coming from KingWorldNews :D
try to wonder less, after all we do all live in interesting times…
"It will no longer buy and sell stocks using its own capital, but instead match clients' buy and sell trading orders through instinet"
Does this mean they've managed to completely unload their book into the bernank pump? and does this signal the end of the pump side of this massive fed stoked pump and dump is almost upon us ?
Yes.. Nomura is a Primary Dealer
HA HA HA HAAAA! Fuck you Nomura, you Primary Stealing piece of shit. May you be the first of a tidal wave of rapidly rotting and stench filled Primary Dealer deaths! (did I mention fuck you?)
I think MF Global beat 'em to that dirtnap
One Fed Prez said " I don't know why we need Primary Dealers, on CNBC, it WAS NOT REPORTED, can't rem his name.
PUT ALL Primary Dealers SIX FEET UNDER!
funny,... every company that bought up the lehman [3?] pie are slowly turning into cadavors...
http://www.euroweek.com/Article/2293089/Southpaw-Loyalty-keeps-Lehman-tr...
with each pie of the [SOLOMON] Lehman Brothers, comes the deadly curses akin to the ones of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
The curses and enslavement to the mankind by the Seeing Eye as in 'Annuit Cœptis - Novus Ordo Seclorum'
Andrew Hitchcock's masterpiece of the World 2.5-Century Timeline, "The History of the House..." - http://bit.ly/MhkwoV or its terser .ppt version: http://bit.ly/NlwRto
and Amanita's "Bilderberg Conference 2010: watch out!" - http://bit.ly/KHpJGw
--------------------
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell." -- Aldous Huxley, author of 'Brave New World', 'Brave New World Revisited', 'The Doors of Perception', etc.
I wonder, now that we've pumped up everybody's 401k, who will they sell that crap to when they retire? Stocks are only valuable if there is a buyer.
next one or two generations of sheeople... or even unborn ones
"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted." -- Aldous Huxley, author of 'Brave New World', 'Brave New World Revisited', 'The Doors of Perception', etc.
Trading floor for ghosts.. or does anyone trade anymore?
No, but if you could convert those 820,000 sq. ft. in mid-town Manhattan into one-bedroom apartments, worth a million $ per unit, you'd really be onto something.
Ever seen stocks twits? It's the highest concentration of socially networked billionaires I've ever seen! You should have seen that shit today, everyone was killing it because every single one was levered long QQQ and SWHC going into today.
So yes, lots of people trade and EVERYONE is awesome as shit at it!
"It will no longer buy and sell stocks using its own capital, but instead match clients' buy and sell trading orders through instinet"
This is a job that computers can do -- no humans needed at all, except to sweep the floors and replace the occasional burnt-out vacuum tube.
We need humans to sweep the floors?
Roomba and Scooba think not...
Can you really pump one of those tubes enough to burn it out;
Somebody has to be ready to turn off the hft algo machine thingy
Well of course this happened. We had to move this venue to a smaller place because of the weather. It certainly wasn't because the volume has dropped and we couln't fill all the seats.
Thank goodness Obama said they didn't build it.
You have a point. Maybe Nomura should simply wrap up its trading floor with a big red ribbon and offer it to the Smithsonian, now, for a tax writeoff, so future generations can actually see what that ancient primitive custom called "stock trading" looked like.
No wonder they suck so bad...all those TVs are tuned to CNBC. If they just switched them over to Zerohedge TV, they'd be killing it.
Or just buy gold, bitchez.
Value engineering for your 401K.
Maybe they can use the write off..
Maybe Smith & Wesson could buy the place and use it as a shooting range? Name it the Bullet Exchange!
"Name it the Bullet Exchange!"
They already have that, it's called the NYPD. The civilians pay for the purchase of ammunition and the NYPD returns it back into the civilians.
Gun control should be hitting your intended target, not the free exchange of goods.
This is obviously, like everything else...bullish.....Right?
Desert Inn Hotel IMPLOSION (Vegas)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W62onrgQDHY
does this mean
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=adIid1T.cFLs
will be selling
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2008/07/30/banker-buys-west-village-loft-for-17m/
I knew a FX trader who worked for BoJ years ago, he did mention to me when he worked there at the time, the floor also had a "dummy" look. Meaning? It was half just to show clients i.e look impressive, phones weren't even connected on some desks.
Looks like it still goes on.
The Dems/obama Convention had dummies and also their voters/delegates dummies to make the place look full. The real dummies were less hateful/violent and more intelligent.
telephone sanitisers
FICC business still alive and well, any equities business is just beating a dead dog.
Hey guys.....um thanks for building and retaining our clients in these difficult times. We got this order matching engine with fancy algos....we no longer need carbon based traders...If you guys can be out of here by 4pm today that would be great.....you can put your Blackberrys in that box over there on your way out.
Ok, super...Thanks!
Decisions such as these demonstrate the DEFLATION that we should be praying for in markets where there's simply zero demand and yet with enough money printing and zero interest rate policy, the toxic combination makes return on capital investment NEGATIVE and this marginalization trend is likely to remain uncomfortably persistent for another 5 years or so while we soak up all of this excess capacity. Should the government try and stimulate more.....this process will remain ELONGATED as more and more malinvestment occurs at the expense of actually prudent, profit earning capital expenditures. research@pamria.com
if you don't do HFT... you are the target.
"This town is full of....Money-Grabbers...go ahead, bite the 'Big Apple'...don't mind the maggots"
"Shey-Doobie....Shattered"
That picture made me think of the ending scene from Rollover. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6butfe1f9Hg&feature=related
the link between Las Vegas and Banking and Finance is that they're both going to look like the Las Vegas property market ...over bullt and vacant
the London property market is staggering, it' not felt recession at all to date ...wait until Europe implodes and the 2nd leg down in the British recession which has just begun
the bigger they are the harder they fall.. London could be absolute carnage in a few years
The crazy BoE has been pumping money into the silly UK economy. Probably one of the places in Europe that will be a no go zone once the region collapses. And that is real soon unless the Brits find oil somewhere.
Doomed.
The BoE has been on hold ( chump ( Every tom,dick,harry has been diversifying F/X into GBP. It isn't about North Sea crude, it's about (liquidity) . English Law
boe are obsessed with QE, i have no faith in the UK economy, except the fact they would benefit from a EU breakup (gilts/GBP bid). I actually have no interest in Europe apart from index lows to buy on. I think the whole region has lost it's mind (collectively). as usual the market is only pricing in more madness from central banks. I am betting that inflation/food riots will erupt soon. Probably globally at the same time.
Property taxes rising in almost every city you search (perhaps, except in the Entitlement Capital of the USA, Cali-Land) to pay for pension plan obligations, promised wage increases, etc.
The beast consumeth the beast
So, in a thinning-volume market, where capacity, once taken off-line, does not come on line instantly, how does one unload, say pension fund holdings, in order to buy real goods such as food, especially in a hurry?
There's an unintended consequence in there somewhere.
Dear Muppets...
Please come back. We miss you.
Love Ben.
Certificate Of Deflation
http://chartistfriendfrompittsburgh.blogspot.com/2012/09/certificate-of-...
You didn't build that trading floor, someone else did.
For once Barrymeme is right.
Just Curious ... Is Nomura owned by the Rothschild cartel?
They need the room to trade all the hot IPOs.
The public is catching on, finally....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bfe6CgYbH8
Wind up workin in a gas station....
Those were the good old days.
the way current trading volumes are going, FX has collpased, most human traders will end up pumping gas.
they didn't build that...
Are the Dexia " miscreants" in the BASEMENT? (sublease)
retail FX traders shall inherit the earth
these big firms are done, HFTs will kill them off, one by one re: volume, lack of, destruction:
http://link.reuters.com/taj52t.
Smart retail F/X traders. Stay flat chump. aud/jpy is in my window. European equity futures are flat, and god knows what Spanish and Italian yields will look like in a few hours.
I caught 50 pips on that ECB b/s yesterday. That was a difficult trade, off those aussie employment numbers, and weak euro/zone #'s. Any other trader that says other wise is full of shit!
I have another trade. It's expensive and volatile, but almost confirming a 1:1r/r (GBP/AUD) short. It's moved 10 big figures non stop and has better R/R than eur/aud (8 big figures).
I don't like the spreads on anything (Swedish/Norwegian).
Well done.
I put in a small aud/usd long Chump. The 200day simple is 15-20 pips away. There are some big stops if that barrier gets broken. ( the r/r is worth it), If not I'll hedge it.
Based on London performance, they will gun for the stops above 1.0320. I have tight trailing stops set. Thanks for the kind comments. :-)
anytime.
respect to anyone trying to beat this f*cking market. and yes I am not talking about lazy momo traders at 'stimulus' lobby firms like Nomura.
I was just listening to this when I realised how incredibly prescient is was of today's collapse of America (written by Irishman, Mark Knopfler, 30 years ago):
"Telegraph Road", Dire Straits, 1982
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wtdFf5QLFw
A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a pack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
Made a home in the wilderness
He built a cabin and a winter store
And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore
And the other travellers came riding down the track
And they never went further, no, they never went back
Then came the churches then came the schools
Then came the lawyers then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And the dirty old track was the telegraph road
Then came the mines - then came the ore
Then there was the hard times then there was a war
Telegraph sang a song about the world outside
Telegraph road got so deep and so wide
Like a rolling river. . .
And my radio says tonight it's gonna freeze
People driving home from the factories
There's six lanes of traffic
Three lanes moving slow. . .
I used to like to go to work but they shut it down
I got a right to go to work but there's no work here to be found
Yes and they say we're gonna have to pay what's owed
We're gonna have to reap from some seed that's been sowed
And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold
L0L!!!
half the nomura articles are complete bullshit and they can't even understand the future of their own business
and of course, it is all someone else's fault!
b/c the "markets" aren't like they usta be before TBTF and the criminals get the bail in the mail; they didn't liquidate the fukers b/c of a "political" decision
and shit happens when moronic asswipes do dumbass things
here's another firm of know-it-alls which can't make a dime right now and has "guessed wrong"
but if thePeople had not bailed out the TBTF would nomura have even survived this long?
you can't have it both ways; and the pols went the other way in 2008
"they" may hafta liquidate sooner or later; who can tell at this point?
look at telecommunications and phones and hand-helds and "apps"
the "markets" are changing just as fast; slewie was trading with an atari 800 in '79; it had a phone modem i put the handset into; two "cups" held the earpiece and mouthpiece and "talked" to the dowJones computer somehow, sending little busloads of data around
i usta punch up a buncha option prices and record the incoming on my betaMax then replay the video to see what i had "downloaded"
no shit
it cost $60/hour to hook up to dowJones with 1 min minimum; yers trooly was less than a minute-man back then too! Hahaha!
the wsj had the option prices for ny, philly, sf, and chi-town and i usta haft go 4 miles to the post office every morning to get it outa the early mail
i just played thru almost 500 players in a card tourney to come in 6th; data flying everywhere; flushes, boats, quads! bad beats all over the place; people throwing chips around like hand grenades; morons bluffing and hitting runner-runner inside straights! just like always, if you must know... fun too, but i didn't win. again
...and i got fuked too! waaaaah! poor slewie! L0L!!!
Them were the days eh Slewie?
Betcha had to walk those 4 miles bare-foot eh? Just too humble to say so ;)
Hey - don't knock those dual rubber-cup modems - mine still works a charm - still got a contract with the pre breakup AT&T.
Thanks for the memories - you the main man Slewie !
Communique from Nomura Tokyo HQ to New York Division
Tora! Tora! No mora Nomura trade-floora - employee out doora!