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Us Equity Market Essay

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\section{U.S. Equity Markets}\label{sec:USMkt} The United States of America became a financial superpower during the Twentieth century; because its currency has been adopted as the world's reserve currency, and from having the world's largest economy. It occupies the first place in the stock market, accounting 53\% of the world total value. It's followed by Japan (8.4\%), and United Kingdom (6.2\%). Moreover, it also has the world's largest bond market \citep{RYB17}. \subsection{Overview} The U.S. equity markets are characterized by its players and components. Both individuals and institutions are its customers. The size of institutions is an element used for their categorization, between retail and institutional customers \citep{AHFT}. …show more content…

They permit the `access', i.e. allow venues to send orders for execution. This linkage systems are crucial, they try to bind the fragmented market into one. The figure below is to illustrate the actual state of fragmentation, it was built using data from Investors Exchange. \\ \begin{figure}[H] \centering \includegraphics[width=.85\textwidth]{./Figures/US_Equity_Market.pdf} \caption{Snapshot U.S. Equity Market on June 21, 2017} \end{figure} \subsection{Decimal Trading} The tick size, which refers to the smallest price change allowed, varies within markets. During the last decade of twentieth century, U.S. markets underwent substantial changes. In early 1990, pricing in Canadian and U.S. markets was denominated in eighths. Nevertheless, it was not the case in Europe and Asia, where the prices were quoted in decimals. In 1996, Canadian stock markets adopted the decimal pricing system. Letting U.S financial markets at a competitive disadvantage with the foreign markets \citep{DT}; for instance, the rounding errors were still affecting the U.S. markets.\\ \newline After some pilot trials, on January 29, 2001, the prices of NYSE listed stocks were switched to a decimal trading system. It was followed by the conversion of NASDAQ pries on April 9, 2001. According to He \citep{DT}, the adoption of decimals in the trading system had a significant effect in tightening the bid-ask spreads. He attributes the decline in spread to the drop in costs

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