Emerging Industry Overview: Electronic Communications Networks
Industry Snapshot
Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs) are computerized trading systems that link buyers and sellers of stocks (some have also delved into other securities and financial instruments). ECNs take the place of broker-dealers on the Nasdaq Stock Market, who are often large brokerages and investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, and the so-called specialists on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), who include many of the same firms but have a monopoly on the market for a specific NYSE-listed-company's shares. In short, ECNs cut out the middlemen.
Complicating matters are the...