Financial Recovery, Dark Pools, and Liquidnet are the Buzz Monday at NIRI

The National Investor Relations Institute annual conference kicked off in South Florida on Sunday. Former White House Economic Advisor, Economist, and author Todd Buchholz was the keynote speaker on Monday. Todd set the tone for the conference and provided a colorful perspective and commentary on some of the root causes of the recent global financial crisis, historical anecdotes and the changing landscape. Todd views the current state of affairs as a challenge of “human capital” and believes that the U.S. can get back on track if we can win the global “race for IQ points.”

Some conference programing and new products and services in the exhibit hall focus on the changing dynamics of equity trading. The session on Monday that appeared to develop the most buzz and standing room only attendance was a session on the dramatic changes in equity trading and the use of “dark pools.” As I understand it, these dark pools act as a wholesale trading market where large blocks of stock are traded. I was also able to attend popular but somber sessions on “Communicating through a Crisis and Executing a Plan,” “The BioPharma Industry Breakout Session,” and “Trends in Media and Technology.”

The exhibit hall is smaller than in years past with a significant decrease in the number of branding and design firms exhibiting. There are a few notable new exhibitors and new capabilities. Below is a preliminary list of some of the vendors I visited on Monday.

Liquidnet IntraRed
This is a new trading concept that has generated some buzz at the conference. Liquidnet InfraRed is a proprietary desktop application accessed through NYSE’s “NYSEnet” system that aggregate institutional demand, news sentiment and block trading data.  This concept is supported with smart marketing and branding including banners in the lobby and an off-floor demo room.

Bloomburg
This was the first year I can recall seeing Bloomburg in the exhibit hall. The staff was excited to demo some interesting functionality to view sustainability data for publicly traded companies.

NYSE
NYSE Connect is new web-based members-only Linked In-type community. NYSE is also featuring a web visibility program for listed companies that highlights one company per week on the NYSE website. This allows the company to post multimedia materials including videos and brochures.

Financial Times
This legendary financial media brand made its debut on the exhibit floor this year. FT’s positioning and brand image is one of the more interesting, international and imaginative. The tag line “We live in financial times” is reinforced by a large photo montage of some of the signature skyline building from financial centers around the world (Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur;  Taipei 101, Taipei; Chrysler Building, New York; TransAmerica Pyramid, San Francisco; “The Gherkin,” London).

Institutional Investor
If you are looking for additional or new rankings for benchmarking, Institutional Investor now has annual rankings for the categories of  “Best IR Team” and “Best IRO” rankings by Buy-side and Sell-side.  Congrats to Andy Wilson and the Danaher team for being the Sell Side winner and Merck for winning in both the Sell Side and Buy Side Categories. Winning in a year marked by the global recession and market meltdown is an impressive achievement.

Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha is another first-time exhibitor at NIRI from a financial media outlet that has over 4 million readers and now claims to publish 200 articles a day.

Knight
New exhibitor and lead sponsor. A trading shop.

MarketWire
MarketWire has added SEO capability to their hosted IR web solution

I’m planning another post later this week. Thanks for reading.