[ T H E E X P E R T C A L L | J E S S E F O R S T E R ]
My top priority looking ahead to Q3 2026 is helping our clients navigate the tangled web of US equity market structure and optimise their business around it. That doesn’ t change regardless of what’ s evolving and that’ s really because our team sits in this unique role of the agnostic analyst, delivering market insight and intelligence based on what market participants are thinking, saying and doing.
My priorities are what’ s on their minds or what their concerns and interests are. It’ s a game of jump ball, but right now in the equities world, market participants on all sides of the aisle are trying to figure out what AI, tokenisation and 24-hour trading means for their businesses. Staying on top of those, besides everything else like the consolidated order trail and order protection rule, is where I expect to be focused, again based on our clients’ interests and priorities.
When I think more specifically to execution quality in the second half of this year, I think this is bilateral liquidity from nonbank market makers ' moment. It’ s absolutely amazing that just a few years ago algo platforms were built specifically around avoiding‘ toxic HFT flow’, and now the buy-side is clamouring to stream liquidity directly from those same firms, who have only gotten technologically savvier and more sophisticated. But their execution quality has gotten a lot better along the way and they got the memo around customer service, so both sides have come together over the past few years and created a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. Capitalism is such a wonderful thing.
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JESSE FORSTER, head of equity market structure and technology at Coalition Greenwich, gives his perspective on what to keep an eye on in Q3 2026.
Buy- and sell-side firms should be positioning themselves flexibly and responsibly as the market structure landscape shifts. In all seriousness, I think for the first time in a while, the regulatory skies are clear and technological tailwinds strong and steady. SEC chair Atkins and director Selway have been crystal clear they want to make US market structure great again. This Commission wants an America-first market structure around next generation technologies like AI and crypto, and they they’ re only going to get it by encouraging innovation around new venues and technology and allowing for a healthy amount of discretion and leeway among market participants eager to risk their own capital in doing so. Now is the time to innovate and think outside the box, mid-term and presidential election cycles are just around the corner.
Finally, digital assets is a hot topic at the moment. It’ s changing tone from thinking about creating a better mousetrap building to what will replace it altogether in an‘ always-on’ environment. Again, we’ re in this blue-sky, go ahead and try it, regulatory and cultural regime and people are doing so. Look at the partnership deals popping up lately – Securitize and Jump to offer tokenised stock trading, with Securitize underwriting tokenised IPOs and secondary offerings for blockchain-based securities the way an investment bank normally would. In addition, Deutsche Börse and Kraken, ICE and OKX( and Polymarket), CME and Google are moving to stablecoin issuance too. The tokenisation of what’ s already in CSDs like DTCC, and then greater 23 / 5 and even 24 / 7 trading of futures on these assets. The list goes on …
82 // TheTRADE // Q2 2026