While the market makers continue to show the best price improvement, there is an interesting new trend in that the specialists/designated market makers (DMMs) are no longer the fastest across most of the categories, and the electronic order books (EOBs) have caught up with them. This and the entry of some new firms among the list of leading market centers show that the market is continuously evolving, and we can expect more improvement.

In a new report, Execution Quality in the NYSE Market, Celent analyzes over 26 billion orders over the period of March 1, 2010 through May 31, 2010. In total, the report by Anshuman Jaswal, Senior Analyst with Celent’s Securities & Investments group, measures and ranks 155 market participants according to their execution speed and prices obtained for incoming orders.

EOBs are the leading performers when both speed and price are taken into account. BATS Exchange, EDGA, EDGX, and Nasdaq MC are the best performing market centers, followed by NYSE Arca, UBS Securities, and Goldman Sachs Execution and Clearing. The specialists/DMMs are performing well on speed, but their pricing is not as competitive.

Table 1 gives the overall rankings for the leading venues of the NYSE issues. The price rankings are headed by Liquidnet and LeveL ATS, whereas the speed rankings are headed by BATS Exchange and KSG.

Table 1: Overall Ranking of Market Centers

NYSE Arca has overtaken Nasdaq MC to become the electronic order book (EOB) with the best prices and is followed by BATS Exchange. EDGA Exchange and EDGX Exchange come in at third and fourth respectively. In the speed ranking for EOBs, BATS Exchange has continued as the fastest EOB for the data studied. EDGX and EDGA have moved to second and third, while Nasdaq MC and NYSE make up the rest of the top five.

Table 2: Ranking the Major Electronic Order Books

Among the major market makers, ATD has overtaken last year’s number one, E* Trade Capital, in the price ranking, and the two are followed by Citadel Securities and Knight Capital. In the speed rankings, UBS Securities comes first, followed by ATD, Citadel Securities, and Knight Capital.

Table 3: Ranking the Major Market Makers

Among the NYSE specialists/DMMs, Goldman Sachs Execution and Clearing leads the price rankings, followed by Getco Securities and Barclays Specialists. Goldman Sachs Execution again leads, with BofA Specialists and Getco Securities in at second and third.

Table 4: Ranking the NYSE Specialists/DMMs