Om Malik

From Traders Magazine, October 1997 issue

When the Pacific Stock Exchange (PCX) received Securities and Exchange Commission approval last month to operate the OptiMark trading system, the pioneer of the new electronic facility, William Lupien, breathed a sigh of relief.

This was one of the many hurdles Lupien had to overcome before his latest brainchild, OptiMark, a black box that executes block orders with unprecedented anonymity, becomes the Instinet of the 21st century. While an Instinet comparison is not entirely fair, it is hard to talk about Lupien’s accomplishments without mentioning the looming presence of Instinet, the trading system he made into a global powerhouse.

Trading Volume

In his five years at Instinet, Lupien, a former PCX specialist trader, presided over a 1,100 percent increase in trading volume, enough for Reuters to pay millions of dollars to acquire the system.

Not satisfied, Lupien now wants to upstage Instinet, starting with