The trade lifecycle, taken apart and made legible
Essays on market structure, surveillance, and regulation
Lead essay — surveillance
A trade that crosses borders now carries the same codes everywhere it goes. The records behind those codes still cannot be combined. That gap — matching identifiers over unpoolable data — is the quiet limit on cross-border market surveillance.
Read the essay →Prior essays
Essay — best execution
European regulators have repealed the reports firms once used to disclose best execution. This traces what replaced them, how the American and British models compare, and whether the duty itself has actually grown more subjective.
Essay — market structure
The proposal to rescind the trade-through rule removes the mechanical test at the center of equity routing. What remains is best execution, measured against benchmarks and shown through the record.
An introduction to the Primer
The Primer takes the order–trade–fulfillment lifecycle apart, one record at a time. Each lesson traces a single stage — what the record captures, what names it, and how it moves — so a newcomer can follow the mechanics and a practitioner can check the detail.