The Commission Squeeze

摘要

Like many Americans who have had to cut their expenses to get by, buy-side traders are tightening their belts when it comes to electronic trading of U.S. equities in order to pay their research bills. With a downturn in U.S. equity trading volumes, buy-side firms have been grappling to pay their brokers for trades and research with a shrinking commission pool. Brokerage commissions decreased 12 percent from Ql 2010 to Ql 2011, falling to $11.5 billion, according to a recent study of U.S. equity trading by Greenwich Associates.