Pharaoh
Brigadier General
- Messages
- 20,325
Is that licnesed partnership?
Exact licenses needed on both sides of a liquidity provider contract will vary, but I'm reasonably certain that the largest banks in the world don't rush out to provide liquidity to some no-name broker with no regulation and a month old domain name.
A lot of brokers hide behind "LPs are confidential." Oddly, I recall an NFA regulated broker that did mailings to all clients whenever they added an LP along with a press release on their website. So I'm left with several theories about secret LPs:
1. The LP is embarrassed to have a broker that far down the liquidity food chain.
2. The broker doesn't want to admit that its only LP is another broker with a bad reputation.
3. There is no LP, just a hollow claim hidden behind confidentiality.
In any event, unless both the broker and the LP are willing to admit to the relationship, then there's no way to be certain the broker-LP relationship is nothing more than a lie told to gain investor confidence.