Browne is one of the most influential African-Americans in the U.S. financial markets, a distinction that he shrugs off.
“I wouldn’t call attention to it,” he says. “If you’re the first at something, that’s different.”
Joe Searles
Though he served as the Amex’s first black floor official in the 1990s, charged with helping to enforce exchange rules, he says that wasn’t a big deal compared with the election of the first African-American as a member of the New York Stock Exchange. Joseph L. Searles III broke that barrier in 1970.
Browne mentors minority students interested in working on Wall Street and is a member of the National Association of Securities Professionals, a group that “assists people of color and women achieve inclusion in the financial services industry,” according to its website.
It was in the mid-1990s that Browne was drawn to what he remembers as “this cool thing called the Spider.”
Back then, ETFs were strictly a niche product. Today, investment advisers are offering portfolios consisting entirely of ETFs. Fund research firm Morningstar Inc. tracks 150 such firms that in September managed $86 billion, up 37 percent in one year.
ETF Converts
Among institutions, more insurance companies and pension funds are converting their individual stock and bond holdings to ETFs. BlackRock in April created three new ETFs designed specifically to meet the needs of the Arizona State Retirement System, which put $100 million into each the day they opened.
Browne’s trading desk facilitates the buying and selling of ETFs in two distinct ways. For most investors, it means executing their orders on the stock exchange. Computers do almost all the work, with various market makers competing to match buyers and sellers. They take a slim margin on each transaction.