According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the decrease in U.S. equities trading volume as well as the decrease in stock prices are hitting Wall Street’s equity trading desks hard. The decreases are causing serious concerns among traders who anticipate layoffs later this year if the situation does not improve.
Stifel Financial Chairman and Chief Executive Ronald Kruszewski indicates that during difficult periods, Wall Street will usually retrench. What will happen this summer is anybody’s guess, but the evidence of a slow down is increasing. According to Mr. Kruszewski, recruiters are reporting they are getting less interest from banks that were once bulking up in areas like institutional equity sales and trading. These banks are apparently reassessing their head counts and not filling open positions. As quoted in the article, Deborah Rivera, founder of a New York executives search firm, the Succession Group, that recruits primarily for hedge funds indicates “we are definitely seeing a pull back across the board.”
According to Pratt H. Davis, a partner at the securities arbitration firm, Page Perry, the pullbacks and consolidations on Wall Street are causing the firms to divest themselves of brokers and/or other sales force individuals who may have become redundant in the wave of the mergers. Accordingly, there has been a significant increase in the number of wrongful termination cases and the number of “bonus” or “promissory note cases” being filed with FINRA. Brokers who are brought over with the lure of large bonuses have since found themselves without that job and facing suits by the brokerage firms to recover up-front money or retention bonuses.
Page Perry is an Atlanta-based law firm with an active practice in representing individuals in employment disputes with firms in the financial services industry. The firm is currently involved in representing several employees in such disputes. In the past several years, the firm has won arbitration award for clients in employment disputes in the amounts of $1.7 and $3.9 million. For further information, please contact www.pageperry.com.