Private exchanges looking to turn back clock

By Jonathan Spicer - Analysis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new era in stock exchanges may be on the horizon -- and it looks something like the past, when a small handful of owners ran important capital markets.

Privately owned U.S. trading venues Direct Edge and BATS Exchange command nearly a quarter of all U.S. stock trading and have no intention of leaving, shaking a field long dominated by the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market.

The two publicly owned incumbents have traditionally bought any upstarts in order to tighten their grip on the market. But that's no longer an option because the upstarts' owners are also largely their customers, and could simply shift their business to new venues elsewhere.

While the incumbents' parents, NYSE Euronext (NYX.N) and Nasdaq OMX (NDAQ.O), have responded with transatlantic mergers and new business models, the smaller challengers -- which sprouted in the last few years and bloomed through the market selloff -- are either transforming into formal exchanges or planting seeds overseas.

Executives at the Reuters Exchanges and Trading Summit this week raised the specter of a partial return to a system in which key marketplaces are run by a small group of powerful players.

"Exchanges used to be mutual organizations that were run for the benefit of the members," said BATS Chief Executive Joe Ratterman. "Well, that's what we've created here -- an exchange that runs for the benefit of the representative user group. And so I think it can last indefinitely.

"Our interests are now aligned with the Street, wholeheartedly," he said.

Aggressive market deregulation in the United States brought an explosion in alternative venues, known as electronic communications networks, or ECNs, in the last decade, setting the tone for changes elsewhere.