Securities Industry

The nation's securities industry fired a net 15,900 employees between last October's stock market crash and the end of the first quarter, according to a study published Tuesday. The joint study was made by the Securities Industry Assn. and the accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Co. It said about 262,200 employees were employed in the securities industry as of Sept. 30, 1987, the last benchmark before the Oct. 19 crash. That number dropped to 260,500 employees as of Dec.

The nation's top securities regulator may be stepping up his campaign to get increasingly fragmented trading systems to link up, for investors' benefit. In a speech Monday, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt said the SEC will issue a preliminary proposal to form a central national stock market by expanding the electronic links among competing markets.

With rare bipartisan support, the Senate is poised to pass a bill this week that could lead largely to the end of the nation's long online sales tax holiday. The measure would allow states to require that large online retailers collect sales taxes on goods sold over the Internet, closing a loophole that has benefited the likes of EBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. The White House gave the legislation its approval Monday, and it passed a key procedural hurdle. The Senate voted 74 to 20 to begin consideration of the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act, with a final vote expected in a few days.

NEW YORK -- High-paying Wall Street jobs will probably become more scarce as securities firms continue to lay off traders and brokers in the face of increased regulation following the financial crisis, according to New York's state comptroller. Profits in New York's securities industry appear to have improved in 2012 compared with the previous year, but at the expense of Wall Street employees, said Thomas DiNapoli, the state's comptroller. "Part of how firms are maintaining profitability is by having fewer people,” said DiNapoli, whose office plans to release a report on Wall Street bonuses next month.

There's too much greed, too much self-interest and too little punishment of wrongdoers. No, that's not the Washington political process we're talking about--those are investors' top gripes about the brokerage industry. The Securities Industry Assn. last week released results of a consumer satisfaction survey it commissioned, and the data gave SIA something to crow about, and some crow to eat.