NYSE Euronext Needs a Plan, Fast

Sometimes a market is just so repulsive that it loses adherents by the day. This stock market has become that kind of market. We have so many stocks trading so randomly and with so little conviction that it seems like the public has just vanished. It seems like the lack of interest is so palpable that we are back in another era, when the market just didn't register on peoples' minds.

The greatest tell of that is the endless decline in a stock I once liked, NYSE Euronext (NYX - commentary - Cramer's Take). You may have read that the low-cost trading marketplace Bats Trading just got approval by the SEC for being a securities exchange. This company, out of nowhere, has taken 10% of the market. And Nasdaq OMX Group (NDAQ - commentary - Cramer's Take) continues to take share, too.

It looks like that what has happened at NYX is that attempts to modernize have failed, and the cost of the specialist system coupled with the amazing lack of new offerings means that the endless decline in share can't be replenished by new listings.

Frankly, I don't know what I would do if I were running the exchange. The notion of floor traders trading stock has become such a huge liability that many of us have tired of hearing about its virtues. The possibility of BATS and NDAQ simply eviscerating NYX is not only possible, it is becoming probable.

Of course NYX isn't standing still. It has added the American Stock Exchange, and it has a good business in Europe replete with futures.

But what I am seeing is a company with a market cap of $10 billion -- less than the cost of Euronext -- and a market that seems to be saying that the NYSE may be worthless.

Harsh judgment, but I am finding it hard to find any case at all that this company's stock should be owned other than by someone who would take over the company and fire all of the specialists. That's the best way to take back share: total automation, with no people.

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