lowtrade

[lowtrade]

Basically FINRA is saying; OTC BB "bad" OTC Markets, "good". But the PR doesn't really say why! It infers lack of use. Using smoke and mirrors tactics. At any rate, all you pennylanders will still have a place to lose money at. This news is about who is killed off and who lives.

Not sure this PR isn't all smoke and mirrors.

Yea I've been thinking about what's going on with the OTC, since I saw Asher start closing out startup ownerships. Then notice the number of pump & dumps fell to nearly Nell.

A few weeks ago, I found that the amount of market makers has been dwindling since the tightening of Reg SHO, in 2008. When I started trading 2004/5 making market at the OTC was in vogue, with naked shorting running wild and most every broker having a OTC broker/dealer wing of their business.

OTC BB
2006 there were 222 market makers and 50 now. Pre 2006 there were many more. Post 2014 there may be many less. LOL zero
https://www.otcbb.com/dynamic/tradingdata/marketmakerspositions/mmakersdata.htm

OTC markets
Shows 60 broker/dealers now.
http://www.otcmarkets.com/market-activity/broker-dealer-info


Wikipedia

In 2008 approximately 16 percent of all U.S. stock trades were "off-exchange trading"; by April 2014 that number increased to about forty percent The Bank for International Settlements statistics on OTC derivatives markets showed that notional amounts outstanding totaled $693 trillion at the end of June 2013...

Seems the market itself is consolidating to the US NORM, of big guys control everything. Less market makers and less inter-dealer quotation systems.

Remember a requirement for a public stock company to be traded, is it has a market maker to back their stock inventory. On a inter-dealer quotation system.

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Things are a changing. IMO the problem lies with FINRA clearing business costs. Since the SEC enforced share clearing rules. Could be a fee structure change is in the works. Or regulators are just trying to cover their inaction at the big boards, on HFT, by crying about the OTC. Or even that OTC markets has FINRA members in their pocket to remove their trading competition, the OTCBB.

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This bring up the subject of that PR itself. It reads like an OTC PR, with carefully worded confusion built in. To pump for closing the OTCBB, not the OTC market. Without differentiating why one should close, but not the other.

But over the years private firms have enabled electronic trading in OTC stocks, and the OTCBB, which brokers still have to pick up a phone to trade through, has seen its market share slide to well under 1 percent.

1st read; only 1% of all stock trades on the, OTCBB. So close it. 2nd read; 1% uses phones ???

1% smoke and mirrors. Actually 40% of all stock trades in pennyland. What they should say is what % does the OTC BB trade vs. the OTC market of that 40%. Not infer weakness threw confusing wording.

Now FINRA aims to close the OTCBB, while tightening regulations around data collection from, and fair access to, OTC marketplaces, according to a document posted on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website on Wednesday.

Where's the news the SEC is closing HFT: high freq trading ? Could care less if FINAR is closing the OTC BB. When one clicks a OTC order, it will still go thru. Only now 1 instead of 2 businesses will make money from my click.