Thus, if we cannot separate rule making from ownership, my forecast is that there will be no significant change in Nasdaq until a new market arises to compete for the listings and order flow. My expectation is that agency electronic systems will arise in the future. One of the offshoots of the new order handling rules has been that we can get rid of the telephones on the trading desk. We do not need them anymore. That bothers me a little because at some point, what we are really all concerned about, and what the accounts and our customers really care about, is liquidity.
Issuers also care about liquidity in their stocks, as well in an orderly market.
The business practice changes that have taken place amongst the main stake holders, the institutions, the members, and the exchanges themselves, as well as the convergence of these participants. Everyone is starting to look more and more the same and that is pretty healthy. It has been an evolution, not a revolution and it has been healthy for the market. In particular, the rising of institutional influence has been an important factor in some of the changes in the marketplace. In that context, Nasdaq in some ways has taken a bad rap when you set it against its competitors in the United States and other stock exchanges around the world.