Amex Selects Lava for Outbound Routing

Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology

The American Stock Exchange (Amex) has selected Lava Trading to provide private linkage services for sending outbound orders to other market centers publishing protected quotes in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission's Regulation NMS.

The linkage service will be rolled out with the Amex's new Auction and Electronic Market Integration (AEMI) platform, the exchange said."The Amex is happy to have chosen Lava Trading to power private linkage services for our AEMI trading platform," stated Antoine Shagoury, Amex's CIO, in the release. AEMI unites the best qualities of electronic and auction markets and we are looking forward to launching our new world-class trading platform and growing our market share," Shagoury stated in the release.

Amex intends to roll out AEMI in advance of the Feb. 5, 2007, deadline set by the SEC for Reg NMS compliance. The Lava private linkage service will allow outbound routing from AEMI to other market centers.

In unrelated news, last week Amex announced the sale of its one-third ownership stake in the Securities Industry Automation Corporation (SIAC) to the NYSE Group, operator of the New York Stock Exchange, for approximately $40 million. SIAC runs the computer systems and communications networks that power the two exchanges and disseminate U.S. market data worldwide.

The transaction is expected to close in November, at which point NYSE Group will fully own SIAC. Currently, NYSE Group owns two-thirds of SIAC, while Amex owns one-third.

Amex Chairman and CEO Neal Wolkoff, who was quoted in the release, positioned the sale as "looking forward to building a new and independent technology future for the Amex together with the launch of AEMI." Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio