SIAC: Silent no more

在2001年9月11日之后，美国股市在2001年9月11日之后回到业务，世界令人惊叹。当他们重新打开以下星期一9月17日，曼哈顿下街的街道仍然是障碍和碎片堵塞，城市的公民被悲伤和恐惧茫然。纽约证券交易所的开幕式从政治领导人那里出色了很大的赞誉，而不是来自换货高管的一些自我祝贺的奖金。

But as it turned out, the Big Board's wasn't the most striking of the market-recovery stories. More remarkable was that of the American Stock Exchange, which sits just a few hundred feet from the World Trade Center site. Even before the second hijacked airplane slammed into the South Tower -- roughly 15 minutes after the first one hit -- the Amex had to shut down its air-conditioning system as debris and smoke enveloped its headquarters. Though the trading floor remained intact, windows had been blown out on seven floors; the electricity, water and steam were out.

因为AMEX无法回到Trinity Place Home，直到10月1日，它重新开放在纽约证券交易所。这一举动是可能的，因为这两个交易所共享相同的技术基础设施，由他们共同拥有的公司管理，证券行业自动化公司的公司管理

The restoration of Amex operations stands out as a case study in technological ingenuity and on-the-fly reengineering. SIAC reprogrammed its messaging system so that Amex orders ended up in the NYSE's exchange-traded-funds area, known as the Blue Room. "What made it work was our ability to finesse the network in such a way as to trick the system into thinking 86 Trinity Place was still working," says Charles McQuade, who retired in June after 21 years as SIAC's chief executive officer. "The member firms didn't have to do a bloody thing."

Says Joseph Anastasio, New Yorkbased managing partner at financial markets consulting firm Capco, "I don't think there is anyone who doubts that if SIAC wasn't there and wasn't as good and as focused and as efficient as it is, then we would never have been able to recover from the events of 9/11 as we did."

如果9月11日强调了国家证券市场中的关键角色赛，事件也可能导致其使命的变化以及它运作的方式。在全球范围内的经济压力灌木的背景下，鉴于这些压力的市场兼并和其他重组，SIAC也可能在其所有权结构的变化中：目前是纽约证券交易所控制的三分之二和三分之一由AMEX。

对于大部分三十年的存在而言，SIAC对其所有者来说是一个非常沉默的合作伙伴。Chribry主要通过保持交换机的交易系统，备份网站和通信线路顺利运行，SIAC管理光纤网络，这些网络链接多个数据中心，并将99％的订单中的成员公司的命令汇总。SIAC也维持媒体系统 - 被称为超级特派团 - 将路线订单到各自的交易所。SIAC为第三次主要客户，存款信托和清算公司及其附属公司提供加工服务。将其添加到UP和SIC系统几乎所有在美国的所有股权和固定收入证券都触及。

PostSeptember 11, SIAC suddenly gained a much higher profile, as the exchanges' technological requirements took center stage. Not least was the need for better backup and recovery plans. For all the ingenuity SIAC and the exchanges used to get up and running, the markets were closed for four days -- their longest shutdown since the weeklong hiatus for the Bank Holiday in March 1933. The Big Board and the Amex were caught unprepared and without adequate facilities to continue trading. That's not SIAC's fault, of course; it's the result of policy decisions made by its owners and of contingency plans that failed to envision a catastrophe on that then-unimaginable scale. Now the exchanges are working to rectify those weaknesses by strengthening their backup capabilities with new and expanded trading floors and a modernized communications network -- and SIAC is responsible for making all of that happen.

Underscoring SIAC's newfound importance to its majority shareholder, the NYSE in June installed one of its own, cochief operating officer Robert Britz, in the additional role of chairman and CEO of the utility, succeeding McQuade. Now industry observers are watching intently to see how Britz and his boss, NYSE chairman and CEO Richard Grasso, will operate the historically secretive, 1,500-employee, $500 million-in-revenue technology shop.

Britz，51，自1995年以来，一名SIAC总监是主席的三位会员办公室，包括总统和联合主席Joseph Kubat，55和Richard Edgar，57. Kubat是一个22年的SIC退伍军人，过去两年多年来，向纽约证券交易所提供服务提供服务，最近增加了AMEX职责。Edgar在纽约证券交易所花了35年，现在管理员工，如人力资源和通信，以及存款信托数据中心和SIC的营利部门附属公司，为金融机构提供网络和计算服务。

英国人的目标是直截了当的，但执行情况很复杂。他的旨在提起企业连续性措施，确保行业再也不会面临着9月11日灾难性规模的故障，他希望提供使SIC的业主与世界各地其他市场竞争竞争所需的新技术 - 以及替代交易系统和电子通信网络正在从传统的地板交易场所乘坐市场份额和纽约的纽约和amex。

These objectives raise particularly sensitive strategic and political questions: Will the NYSE be able to maintain its open-outcry tradition, and should it, if the economics of electronic markets argue otherwise? What will become of its junior partner, which surely doesn't figure too prominently in the NYSE officials' long-range thinking, except as perhaps a takeover target? And should the Amex get uncomfortable -- and it has been squirming in recent years -- how much trouble will that cause SIAC and the NYSE?

Britz is quick to downplay any sense of a NYSE takeover. He emphasizes that SIAC is a utility in service to its owners and their members. "It is less a creator of initiative and more an implementer," Britz says of SIAC. "It is SIAC's customer base -- the NYSE, Amex, DTCC and the industry -- that identifies the business need."

Britz does acknowledge that his appointment at SIAC sends a message about the importance of technology to the NYSE and about the exchange's intent to control its destiny. "SIAC is mission-critical to NYSE. The stock exchange would not occupy the position that it does in the U.S. capital markets but for the contribution that SIAC has made over the years," says Britz. He adds, "Rather than indirectly managing SIAC on behalf of the NYSE, I am doing it a little more directly going forward."

然而，AMEX官员表示，他们是安排的内容。SIAC的CTO Ravi Apte说，他们完全致力于我们。“

有很大的赌注。SIAC是两家交易所的主要预算项目，其技术支出每年将其技术支出增加10％。纽约证券交易所的纽约证券交易所的841.8百万美元，去年的总费用，25690万美元去了SIAC。AMEX在SIAC上花费了10490万美元，以28970万美元的成本为止。SIAC的其他主要收入来源是其部门附属公司（6360万美元）和DTCC国家证券清算公司（5470万美元）。总共2001年收入为4.939亿美元，SIAC赢得了1030万美元。

Despite the budget-cutting atmosphere on Wall Street, Britz says that SIAC is investing in its future: "Technology is one of the last places that we would want to cut in any sort of difficult environment." At the same time, SIAC's purpose is "to find cost-effective technical solutions in service to the industry. That is an enduring mission that does not need to be tinkered with."

鉴于世界市场上的动荡，该单位可能是一个多点滋补化。最值得注意的是纽约证券交易所和amex可能会合并的谣言。自2008年4月在2001年4月宣布，自国家证券经销商协会自2001年4月宣布以来，这是一项拨出的可能性，该批准了自2008年1998年4月宣布，它希望将其旋转。纽约证券交易所首席Grando在3月份宣布他承认他正在考虑收购时。交易所下降，评论谈判状况。

交易有一些逻辑：大板可以使用AMEX选项中的优势，并ETF可以更有效地竞争ECN和纳斯达克。随着更广泛的投资组合，随着SIAC更加紧密地集成，纽约证券交易所可以提高自己的市场价值，如果它恶化和向公众发出股份，这可能又可以成为资产。

“先进的技术被视为一种抽气的一种方式，”马萨诸塞州的研究公司Towergroup的Cailities和Capital Markets的研究总监Robert Iati说。他认为英国人和公司进入SIAC可能是纽约证券交易所终极收购的纽约州的AMEX及其共享技术的初步。

Capco的AnaStasio正在投注他所谓的“纽约证券交易所和AMEX之间的外出业务合并”，如果不是那样，两者之间的合作就在基础设施和加工的一个非常战略层面之间的合作。“他认为，作为9月11日的直接生长：“SIAC，纽约证券交易所的合作，纽约证券交易所和AMEX强调了多大的意义合作，三者有效如何合作。这是否成为全吹合并或其他东西的催化剂在加工和基础设施级别仍有待观察，但有些东西会给予。“

SIC开启了门1972年 - 英国人巧合的是，英国人去纽约证券交易所工作。然后，金融业在电脑年龄缩短了必要性。20世纪60年代后期和20世纪70年代初期的文书工作危机已迫使纽约证券交易所采取剧烈的措施，如几天内关闭市场，以使成员公司的后台办公室追赶。每日股票在2000万以下。“今天我们的比率是每天14亿股，”英国人指出。“我们这样做，较少的人在地板上，略微更多的空间。这让你感觉到了SIC和纽约的纽约州的结合。”

SIAC was one of several industry utilities started at about the same time that automated and streamlined the complex flows of funds and documentation between institutions. These joint ventures -- others include the DTCC for securities clearing, the New York Clearing House's Chips network for large money transfers and the global Swift messaging network for funds transfers and securities settlements -- enabled the industry to spread its systems costs while reducing risks. The NYSE and Amex reasoned that with SIAC, each would not have to develop its own back-office facility, and they could share the benefits of economies of scale.

But competitive issues threatened the spirit of cooperation. After the NASD -- in its since-modified role as the parent of the Nasdaq Stock Market -- acquired the Amex in 1998, it planned to consolidate the technologies, which would have meant a loss of business for SIAC. That never happened: The plan turned out to be more complicated than anticipated, and the NASD turned most of its attention to upgrading Nasdaq's systems, which it considered a higher priority. Then the Amex explored moving its SIAC services in-house; the exchange was disenchanted by the NASD experience and concerned that the NYSE would tighten its grip on SIAC and shortchange the Amex. "Amex essentially wanted to take control of its own technology because it was of strategic significance," recalls McQuade.

换句话说,美国运通是到达相同的conclusion as had the NYSE: that technology was too important to delegate. And then, as Capco's Anastasio puts it, "9/11 happened." Suddenly, tensions between SIAC's owners eased. Amex was so pleased with SIAC's performance that it decided to stay put. Amex CTO Apte says that the exchange is satisfied that SIAC is "professionally managed and unbiased." Adds Britz, "I worry less about my erstwhile competitor and more about challenging ourselves so that we do better tomorrow than we are doing today."

Peace in the boardroom lets Britz and his team concentrate on their immediate priorities, which include planning for a new NYSE trading floor and dealing with the ongoing concern of keeping the infrastructure "ahead of the growth curve" of exchange volume, which is running 15 percent above last year's.

现在正在进行的一个项目，安全的金融交易基础设施或SFTI（发明的安全），通过为9月11日提供会员公司将电子订单传输到市场数据中心的多种方式来解决9月11日发生的通信故障。成员公司将通过整个纽约大都市地区的各种宽带通信中心连接。通过链接到这些集线器中的至少四个，经纪人获得了最大限度地保证连接。“有多个数据中心，[公司]通过连接到每个数据中心，”Britz解释道。“现在，通过在IP [Internet协议]网络中的高速光纤线路，通过具有连接到多个数据中心的多个集线器，它们将获得进一步的冗余。”

Less straightforward or predictable are changes in the competitive landscape and how SIAC will help the exchanges respond to them. One looming threat is Nasdaq's recent introduction of SuperMontage, an advanced, ever-more-inclusive display of the order book that is also expected to give the ECNs a run for their money.

Christopher Keith, a former CTO at the NYSE and a onetime SIAC executive, says that the floor-based markets must be prepared for a more subtle threat. Keith, now CEO of ExchangeLab, a New Yorkbased market technology developer, predicts that over the next two to three years "intelligent agent" systems will emerge that combine the power of computerized trading with the human touch of telephone-based dealing. That, Keith believes, could further erode the NYSE's open-outcry volume, and he doubts that SIAC can engineer an effective response. "No innovations or new ideas come out of SIAC," he says. "It's mainly there to keep the turbines moving."

目前，就amex的APTE而言，这很好。他的需求很简单 - 一个系统大修，旨在让他的基础设施更便宜，更可靠，更可靠，当音量需要时更可靠，更容易扩张，并且SIAC正在执行这些变化。如果SIAC的“涡轮机”不填写账单，则AMEX在其他地方可以自由地购买，这是两年前它在它外包选项处理到瑞典的OM时。“选项交换具有不同的挑战，”Notes Apte。

SIAC's other customer, the DTCC, which includes among its 152 shareholders the major exchanges, also exhibits an independent streak. DTCC's clearing subsidiaries cut their SIAC spending by 29 percent last year -- not out of dissatisfaction, says a DTCC spokesman, but because DTCC has reduced its costs by moving some operations in-house.

令人惊讶的是，英国人认为SIAC有更多的服务，而不是基本的阻挡和解决。除了在很大程度上与本土软件的核心交易引擎运行，SIAC还将其他公司的技术融入英国人描述为“一般承包商”角色。例如，在过去的一年中，SIAC帮助纽约证券交易所实施直接+，以便快速执行高达1,099股的订单，以及电子经纪人，无线订单管理工具。“交易楼，几乎矛盾，是如何实现计算机化的生产力承诺如何实现的很好的例子之一，”英国人争辩说。

但是，斯坦福德委员会咨询公司Gartnerg2斯坦福德副总裁兼研究总监David Furlonger表示，如果交易所希望作为真正的商业企业最大限度地减少费用最大限度地利用利润，那么他们将不可避免地要去电子，并远离开放的抗议。“前进的基本问题是，”他们能够利用技术来从根本上彻底彻底改变他们的商业模式吗？或者他们是否仅使用技术只是为了逐步发展现有的商业实践？“我建议纽约证券交易所一直在演变营地，而不是革命营。“

Britz disagrees. "There are various initiatives in progress that will get the NYSE to a paperless trading floor in the next 12 months," he vows. Adds exSIAC chief McQuade: "I would not bet against the NYSE. There is no patience there for systems that don't work."