The STA’s 90th Annual Market Structure Conference: The Next Era will take place on October 11–13, 2023, at the JW Marriott Washington, DC, bringing together financial industry professionals for an in-depth look at reforms to equity market structure, new challenges and regulatory priorities surrounding digital assets, and future-defining questions facing the industry.
“We’re very proud of where it [the conference] sits in the industry today. We’re very happy with how the firms and sponsors respond to us,” commented Jim Toes, President and CEO of the Securities Traders Association (STA) during the Boxes and Lines – Trading Tales with STA’s Jim Toes: Bitcoin ETFs, Round-the-Clock Trading, and the SEC’s Market Structure Proposals, on October 3.
During the market structure podcast with Ronan Ryan & John Ramsay of IEX, Toes provided his thoughts on the SEC’s proposed market structure reforms, saying: “We do have the best markets in the world. There are certainly improvements that can be made to it around rationalizing tick sizes or addressing the odd lot and round lot issues.”
“We are very much in favor of some of the elements of it and some of the principles around it,” he said.
“We have a very broad membership. It’s always hard for us to have really strong and defined opinions on particular issues as they come up,” he added.
During the podcast Toes also discussed ETFs, the rise of stablecoins and Bitcoin ETFs, and the implications of a 24-hour trading day.
As one of the industry’s most robust asset classes, ETFs grow in complexity each day, and this year, there will be two panels on ETFs – “The ETF Perspective” with Eric Pollackov, Global Head of ETF Capital Markets, Invesco, Giang Bui, Head of U.S. Equities & ETPs, Nasdaq, Reggie Browne, Principal, GTS, and moderated by Adam Gould, Global Head of Equities, Tradeweb; as well as “Stablecoins and Bitcoin ETFs” with Dave LaValle, Global Head of ETFs, Grayscale, and Greg Lee, Managing Director, Paxos, and moderated by Michael Piwowar, Executive Vice President, MI Finance, Milken Institute.
“When we look at the market structure, we feel that the ability for capital to move across different asset classes is totally amazing and unique to our markets and ETFs has played a huge role on that,” Toes said.
On stablecoins, Toes said: “We have a lot of senior members who left equities and drifted into this space, so we drifted into this space. There’s also a real natural curiosity and we think there’s a big capital formation underlying around stable coins,” he said.
Commenting on the growth of overnight trading, Toes said: “Obviously it’s the influence of the crypto markets”.
“I think that some of these firms, especially the retail oriented firms, they’re seeing that their newer clients are coming onto their platforms because of the crypto markets,” he said.
