Hedge Investment
NYSE, Buy-side
Trading Tools Fuel Investments
Sixth in A Continuing Series
By Russell Jones
Financial Writer
"Information is the currency of democracy." - Thomas Jefferson
Peter Jenkins, senior vice president, Institutional Client Group, New York Stock Exchange.Peter Jenkins is senior vice president, Institutional Client Group, of the New York Stock Exchange. He is responsible for overseeing the NYSE’s relationship with the buy-side community and key individual buy-side stakeholders, including mutual funds, public and corporate pension funds, nonprofit organizations, and hedge funds.
Prior to joining the NYSE, Jenkins was managing director and head of North America Active Equity Trading for Deutsche Bank Asset Management; served as head of Global Equity Trading for 16 years; and previously spent three years as a senior trader at Cigna Investment Management. He began his career as a trader at Scudder Stevens and Clark Investments in 1980. Jenkins graduated from the University of Connecticut in 1980. He reports to Catherine Kinne, NYSE president and co-COO.
Keeping current with the pulse of markets means diligence, information and applying new technology. Clients demand excellence and constant improvements to respond to markets.
“The buy-side community is operating in an ever-changing and growing market place with increased internal and external pressures that impact the way investment managers operate, invest, and trade,” he says.
Jenkins, former head of equity trading at Deutsche Asset Management, joined the NYSE in October 2004 to strengthen relationships with buy- and sell-side institutions and to help inform them about the exchange’s products and initiatives.
Jenkins admits he has a passion to build relationships almost as much as he “loves to trade.” That’s why the former trader accepted the position as head of the NYSE’s Institutional Client Group, becoming the exchange’s top liaison to buy-side institutions.
Since joining the NYSE, Jenkins has expanded and diversified his team’s coverage beyond the top long-only institutions and to include hedge funds.
With thousands of hedge fund and asset managers, Jenkins aims to cover institutions that truly represent the buy-side, which he describes as “very diverse in its opinion and use of the NYSE.”
The information Jenkins and his group gathers is used by the NYSE to better understand the buy-side investment process and thereby helps the exchange design products and services that meet the needs of the entire buy-side community.
“When the NYSE asks for the institutional viewpoint, I want to be sure that I give the true opinion of the buy-side,” he says.
Jenkins and his team have been busy preparing the buy-side for the NYSE Hybrid Market and their new trading tools that rolled out in late 2006. The NYSE Hybrid Market is a market model that integrates the aspects of the auction market with automated trading so customers receive the broadest choice of trade execution preferences.
“The Hybrid is giving the buy-side things they’ve been asking for and solving a lot of problems for them,” says Jenkins. “People are very excited to get this new model in place to see how it works.”
Innovations continue to be developed as the exchange evolves. In 2006, the NYSE completed its acquisition of Archipelago, as part of a strategy to create for customers a global leader that offers multiple products and multiple paths to access liquidity.
The result is a new NYSE Group with another trading platform, a new listing platform and an expansion of its product line, adding options and bonds to the previous offering of equities, ETFs and structured products. In addition, NYSE Group is offering new market-data products to better inform traders’ decision making with fast, in-depth transparency and insight into the market.
On the horizon is the NYSE’s proposed merger with Euronext, which is targeted to be completed in 2007. The combination would create new opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic for the buy-side community: access to the world’s largest pool of capital in two time zones and two currencies, with an unmatched product array featuring the world’s leading equities as well as derivatives, futures, options, bonds and data.
Jenkins is deeply appreciative that the buy-side has been receptive to talking with him and his team about all of these developments.
“I’m very rarely rejected by clients. People want to hear what the NYSE has to say, and we’re interested in hearing from them, and that, to me, is a wonderful thing. People want to see the NYSE succeed. They want to be proud of their markets.”
