Securities and Exchange Commission

Submitted by Boyd Roddy of the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation

Globus Medical’s Inside Job

Last February spinal orthopedic device maker Globus Medical purchased Branch Medical Group, a key supplier and contract manufacturing operation based just three miles away from its Audubon, Pa. headquarters.

The BMG deal was announced on the same day Globus released fourth quarter and 2014 earnings and little attention was paid to what looked like another instance of a high-profile, larger company merging with a small, privately-held one.

Something strange happened on Friday: as a result of the 20% YTD surge in the price of gold and "surging demand", BlackRock announced it had temporarily suspended the creation of new shares of its $7.8 billion gold Exchange Traded Product IAU "until additional shares are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission."

As most market structure watchers are well aware, the biggest debate currently roiling the field of equity markets revolves around the August 21, 2015 submission by the dark pool made famous by Michael Lewis' Flash Boys, IEX, in which it seekis to become a public trading venue that will compete with the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market. What makes IEX different from all other "lit" venues and markets is its embedded technology which implements a 350 microsecond order delay which makes HFT frontrunning, spoofing, and quote stuffing of orders impossible.

Authored by David Swensen (Yale CIO) and Jonathan Macey, Op-Ed via NYTimes.com,

America's equity markets are broken. Individuals and institutions make transactions in rigged markets favoring short-term players. The root cause of the problem is that stocks trade on numerous venues, including 11 traditional exchanges and dozens of so-called dark pools that allow buyers and sellers to work out of the public eye. This market fragmentation allows high-frequency traders and exchanges to profit at the expense of long-term investors.