Rosenblatt Securities has hired Gordon Charlop as managing director in charge of the firm’s New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) floor operations. Charlop, formerly president and CEO of agency brokerage WJ Dowd, will oversee a floor staff that has grown during the past two years from six to nine people.
Rosenblatt says the growth in floor staff contrasts with the actions of many other brokerages – especially the big global players that traditionally have provided the bulk of the NYSE’s order flow – which the firm claims have cut their floor staffs significantly. Rosenblatt views these moves as overreactions. The firm now derives the vast majority of its revenues from upstairs trading and other businesses, but it says it firmly believes that the ability to represent customer orders on the NYSE floor remains an essential tool for achieving best execution.
“We believe it’s important to represent our clients wherever the liquidity they need resides, whether it be in the various electronic markets to which we connect or on the NYSE floor,” said Dick Rosenblatt, founder and CEO of Rosenblatt Securities and an NYSE executive floor governor in a statement. “The management of the exchange is committed to maximising the strategic value of the floor, and by expanding our floor presence, especially now with Gordon’s leadership, we believe we will be well positioned for coming changes to the NYSE’s market structure aimed at stabilising and reclaiming lost market share.”
Before joining WJ Dowd in 1990, Charlop was a clerk at HJMeyers and a trading assistant for Bear, Stearns & Co. on the American Stock Exchange. Throughout his career Charlop has been involved in the development of the Big Board’s trading technology, and he currently serves on the exchange’s Technology Planning and Oversight Committee, as well as its eBroker Technology Committee.