System Tests Going Well, OptiMark Says

Testing of a new stock trading system that allows large institutions to buy and sell shares anonymously is going smoothly, its creators say, predicting that an official launch date is imminent. OptiMark, the trading system devised by OptiMark Technologies in conjunction with the San Francisco-based Pacific Exchange, lets large institutional investors such as pension and mutual funds trade anonymously with one another. The system is being closely watched by traders and some of the nation’s largest stock exchanges. OptiMark has reached agreements to provide its trading system to the Nasdaq Stock Market and Japan’s Osaka Securities Exchange. “The news is that things are going well and people are using it. While there is no specific launch date yet, it appears imminent,” said Procter Lippincott, spokesman for Durango, Colo.-based OptiMark. At least one trader at one of the many large institutions testing OptiMark said that although the process is going well, whether the system really works remains to be seen. “They are making a lot of progress, but I’ve seen a million trial balloons,” said Andrew M. Brooks, head of equity trading at T. Rowe Price Associates, the Baltimore-based mutual fund giant. “I don’t think we can really know how this works until they roll this thing out.”