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A Rare and Precious Commodity on Wall Street

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The good guys in Michael Lewis’ book Flash Boys come from RBC bank, and are led by Brad Katsuyama. It turns out that being trustworthy never goes out of style. Bloomberg reports:

The culture of “RBC nice” is paying dividends for Canada’s second-biggest bank.

Royal Bank of Canada has become the standard-bearer for a revolt among investors against so-called predatory high-frequency trading practices on both Wall Street and Canada’s Bay Street.

The technology, ideas and personnel behind the upstart IEX Group Inc. alternative stock market in the U.S. and the proposed Aequitas Innovations Inc. exchange in Canada can be traced to Royal Bank, portrayed as an outsider on Wall Street in “Flash Boys,” Michael Lewis’s book exposing the U.S. market’s obsession with trading speed.

“Certainly our clients, as I look at our electronic trading numbers, are doing more business with us,” said Greg Mills, head of global equities at Royal Bank. “We have more requests for meetings, we have more people coming to us and saying ’Help us understand this problem again.’”

Royal Bank’s RBC Capital Markets unit spent years supporting Brad Katsuyama’s quest to understand the effects of high-frequency trading on Wall Street, ultimately developing software designed to protect against traders using speed as an advantage. Katsuyama, the protagonist of “Flash Boys,” left RBC to found IEX, which began trading in October, and Royal Bank has since publicly supported it.

‘RBC Nice’

Royal Bank has emerged as a leader against predatory high-frequency trading at a time of increasing scrutiny from both regulators and the public after the release of Lewis’s book, which claims the stock market is “rigged” against investors. The bank is described by Lewis as fostering an “RBC nice” culture with its “no asshole rule” on hiring.

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E.J. Smith

Editor-in-Chief
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com.