At the Securities Industry Association's fourth annual market structure conference in June, representatives of Nasdaq, the ECNs and the NYSE sat under the glittering chandeliers of New York's Grand Hyatt slinging mud at each other.
Much to the bemusement of many in the audience of investors, traders, lawyers and journalists who witnessed this spectacle, the keynote speaker, Bob Greifeld, Nasdaq's new chief executive, said: "Internalization is a confusing term and what it really means is competition."
Unsurprisingly - because internalization is not so much a confusing term that means competition as a controversial one that means you may not necessarily get the best price - the gasps were audible and more than a few jaws dropped. Greifeld stayed to answer questions just long enough to be asked by an Instinet representative how internalization could help small investors. He then slunk out.
Ducking important questions was the order of the day, as profound debate on how US equities trading could be improved gave way to the individual market centres trying to further their self-interests and taking pot shots at each other.
Nasdaq's chief economist, Michael Edleson, could be heard fulminating to his colleague on the escalator, after Archipelago's chief administrative officer and general counsel, Kevin O'Hara, goaded him about Archipelago's improving market share, which has come largely at Nasdaq's expense.