The Club's Doors Fly Open
What happens when someone builds a new road right next to your tollbooth? That’s the question these giants are now facing. For decades, their dominance was protected by a fortress of high costs and regulatory red tape. Trying to compete was a fool's errand. Now, however, cracks are appearing in the walls. Nimble tech firms and alternative trading systems are siphoning off business, proving that you don’t need a grand old name to execute a trade. The meme stock craze was a perfect example. A rabble of retail traders, co-ordinating on the internet, showed that orders can be routed far away from the traditional exchanges. The old guard suddenly looked a bit slow, a bit out of touch. The irony, of course, is that the very technology they pioneered to make markets faster is now being used to run rings around them.