Business of Fintech
New stock exchange approved, Silicon Valley readies another
- Recently-approved IEX aims to level playing field
- A stock exchange for long term investors?

After a lot of wrangling with the SEC, IEX was finally approved to become a full-fledged exchange. The startup, whose founder was made famous by his depiction in Flash Boys, hopes to even the playing field somewhat by instituting a 350-microsecond speed bump in the orders it's routed.
Supporters of the upstart exchange welcome its fresh, democratic approach towards a market that's essentially become a badly designed computer network: "It’s as if Comcast, Time Warner, and Charter were competing to send you Game of Thrones, every time you turned on your TV," wrote Christopher Groskopf in Quartz.
Detractors say the approval of a new exchange just adds fragmentation to a market that already has 12 exchanges and dozens of private trading venues.
"By slowing down their outgoing market data, it becomes very difficult to determine who has the best price, and where to send that order to," Larry Tabb, CEO of an influential market research firm, told The Verge.