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Page 132
The Stock Market Of The Future
The past shows us the future. As Shakespeare wrote ''What's past is prologue." The markets of the future will be computer accessible, transparent, and open to all. In the future, specialists on the major securities exchanges will lose their vested ability to monopolize the market in any particular stock and will be forced to computerize and display their internal book so that all market participants will have equal price disclosure of support and resistance levels.
All markets will be and should be interrelated. The occasional price dislocations that Direct Access Electronic Traders now use to profit from intermarket arbitrage should no longer exist because arbitrage is a product of inefficient markets. The core market is the theoretical and actual place where all orders will meet.
The advent of ECNs will prove to be the basis of real 24-hour-a-day trading that will be available worldwide. Eventually, ECNs will permit the display of orders from anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world. Because the mechanism for transparency will be absolute and access will be routine through a multitude of interconnected computer networks, there will no longer be a need to restrict market hours for the convenience of the market makers, the industry, and the regulators, and trading could occur as long as there were willing buyers and sellers. It may prove to be more convenient for most Americans to trade in the evening after they come home from a day's work. Instead of watching mindless sitcoms and other TV trash, many market participants would gainfully be spending their time in the market. I believe that a good market will draw a larger audience than a popular sporting event. After all, trading is a participatory sport rather than an idle spectator sport and a trader's potential injuries will be financial rather than physical.
The future of the market markets appears to be bleak and dismal. Many literate people will be trading through a personal computer. I foresee a financial Internet that is totally secure and operating in real time. Every stock, commodity, and

 
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