John Thain continues to push the 212-year-old New York Stock Exchange into the 21st century.
Thain reassured members during the conference that he was not abandoning the floor trading system.
Thain said he sees cross-border consolidation, but not before there is more consolidation at home.
"There is no reason why we can't reduce some of the regulation, " Thain said.
He joins JohnThainJohn Thain, former president of Goldman, who is now chief executive of NYSE .
Thain has denied news reports that a bigger investigation into this week's events is underway.
Even Thain alluded to it today, promising the lunch crowd he wouldn't attempt to outdo Miller.
Thain made the comments today as the brokerage industry gathered in Boca Raton, Fla.
Thain has a tightrope to walk between the future of the exchange and its storied past.
In fact, Thain appears to have gone out of his way to push up seat prices.
"It was stuff that came out of the factory and wasn't sold, " says Thain.
Part of Thain's job, like that of a good physician, is to do no harm.
Thain, who is thin, athletic and distinctly Clark Kentish, ticks through the remaining assets with sangfroid.
Whether Mr Thain can restore Merrill's fortunes over the longer term is a bigger question.
But though Mr Thain's move has rightly been termed bold, it may not be immediately brilliant.
Thain confronted the floor traders and, bit by bit, convinced them that their future lay with digits.
Thain got pushed out of Merrill in January 2009, after he sold it to Bank of America.
The sale, however, "represents a significant milestone in our risk-reduction efforts, " Thain said in a statement Monday.
Merrill, like the New York Stock Exchange when Thain arrived in early 2004, is reeling from bad press.
In an April 28 letter to members, NYSE chief John Thain and Chairman Marshall Carter addressed these concerns.
Before becoming chief executive on Dec. 1, "I wanted a full look at the books, " concedes Thain, 52.
But specialists are important at times of high volatility, as Thain is careful to point out in defending the auction system.
Thain said the exchange had "rebalanced" its servers and would be adding capacity.
Thain once reigned as CEO of the New York Stock Exchange and turned that institution around in troubled times.
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He also identifies with NYSE Chief Executive John Thain, who, like Cummings, is a Midwesterner with an engineering background.
Thain and Carter contend that the Archipelago merger will help NYSE remain competitive.
Things were looking grim for John Thain , the New York Stock Exchange's new chief executive, early this year.
Risk management a discipline in which Mr Thain is said to excel needs to be spruced up, to put it kindly.
The Big Board's energetic boss, John Thain, wants to add derivatives and restore the NYSE's original business, trading bonds.
Ian Thain is a senior technical evangelist at Sybase, a unit of SAP.
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