[silentsea90]

Echoing what somebody else said, "open for business" feels a bit disingenuous from a retail investor perspective as there is no place to trade stocks, no sign up, no stocks listed etc. A more restricted announcement (read directly to companies) would probably have been a better idea to gain that critical mass.

For reference, whenever Uber/Lyft "open for business" in a new city, they don't just flip the switch to enable the app in an area. They work towards gaining a critical mass of drivers to ensure reasonable quality service levels, incentivize drivers to stay online as rides trickle in etc.

Or is this the "Lean Startup" approach to get a feel for the reception of the idea though I'd imagine that was done before you got started on building the product :)

Overall, I am very excited for what you're building and will watch out for more substantive updates! It is super cool that your team is working on challenging the status quo in an unconventional manner.

[eries]

I don't understand this criticism. We are actively trading stocks today: https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_share/

You can call your broker right now and ask them to direct your orders to a specific exchange, including "L" on the SIP.

[ismail]

Eric, you are a smart guy. I think you should pay attention to the signal.

Multiple people have mentioned a similar thing. I have had a similar experience.

While it may be technically accurate that the “LTSE is open for business”

My expectation and others also seem to have had a similar expectation after reading the announcement was:

We can now purchase shares in companies that are listed on the LTSE. Having tried to get more info on companies listed on the LTSE, we are finding none.

“Open for business” is never defined.

It says

“Today, after months of booting up, I am thrilled to report that the Long-Term Stock Exchange has opened for business with a mission to support companies and investors who share a long-term vision.”

There are a few potential options:

1. oversight , without the realisation that people will assume the LTSE has shares listed on it which can be traded

2. Deliberately designed to lead people to think the LTSE has shares listed on it in order to test. Lean startup and all that.

On a other note long range planning and thinking is difficult, due to discounting and uncertainty. A massive impact can be had if more people could think Though multiple causal generations down.

[roguecoder]

I don't know why you would assume that a stock exchange being "open for business" meant having a company listed. If you have a company to list, LTSE is now a place you could take it public. Yesterday that wasn't true.

Maybe it's people used to stock exchanges treating companies as the product, instead of as their customers? If so, you seem to be demonstrating the problem LTSE is trying to solve.

[mkolodny]

So you can buy stocks through the LTSE that aren't listed on the LTSE? If so, why would someone do that?

I think GP's point is that you're saying "we're open for business", but the LTSE isn't offering people who buy stocks any added value yet.

[eries]

Yes, you can buy or sell any US exchange-listed security on LTSE starting today. If you check the market share tracker at CBOE you can see the "notional dollar value" of the shares which have transacted on the platform today: https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_share/

It's clearly not zero, so somebody sees some benefit in it. So I don't see the issue with saying that we are "open for business"

[plantsbeans]

Apparently the overwhelming majority of HN audience doesn't really know how the basics of what a stock exchange functionally does (including myself). I'm starting from here, "Getting to Know the Stock Exchanges"...

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/04/092404.asp

Anyway, maybe a good question for someone familar with the technical details - why is there so much volume already flowing through LTSE? Is it just arbitrarily included in some standard broker software application such that it doesn't make a difference to them? Since apparently there is already nearly as much volume traded on LTSE as there is through Nasdaq.