GTT says it expects to integrate PacketExchange's network assets, services and clients into its proprietary Client Management Database (CMD) rather quickly.
At these gatherings, attended by client and proprietary traders, research analysts would identify stocks they thought were likely to rise or fall because of coming earnings announcements, the direction of the overall market or other short-term developments.
In relation to the conventional acquisition model of surveys carried out by client demand (proprietary surveys), the alternative spec survey business model allows the cost and risk of large acquisition projects to be shared among potentially interested O&G companies.
And the line between making markets for clients and proprietary trading is fiendishly difficult to draw.
But at present, regulators are in a bit of a fix over how to distinguish risk-trading done on behalf of clients from proprietary trading.
Citigroup's recent disclosure that it was creating an electronic bond-trading system for its clients, a proprietary exchange of sorts, follows the introduction of similar trial systems by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Officials in the Ministry of Finance in Japan, he added, "have sent deliberate messages to us to tell our hedge fund clients and proprietary trading desks not to speculate on the yen".
Although bank officials say investment advisers typically don't receive incentives to place clients with proprietary bank funds or other products that carry higher fees, Bill Doyle, an analyst with Forrester Research, said customers should always make sure they are getting the best possible deal.
TCW contended that Mr. Gundlach and his associates stole client information and proprietary trading systems in order to set up a competing firm, DoubleLine Capital.
Market-making and underwriting are exempt, too, though the line is often fuzzy between these pure client activities and proprietary bets.
