When you think about stocks, you think the New York Stock Exchange, an icon of American finance for the past 200 years. Now think about its new owner, Intercontinental Exchange – based right here in Atlanta. 

“It will probably result in jobs eventually,” said Emily Sanders, Managing Director of Sanders Financial Management in Norcross, a subsidiary of United Capital Advisors. 

Direct jobs resulting from the acquisition of the NYSE by ICE is actually the lesser local benefit to this $8.2 billion dollar deal, she said. While it moves the NYSE away from pit trading and into the split-second realm of global computer trading, it does not move the NYSE to Atlanta. The trading floor will remain on Wall Street. But Atlanta, already a growing center for credit card and electronic transaction processing, is poised to become a leader in the processing of computerized trades, she explained. 

“Atlanta is very much on the forefront (positioned to take) the lead,” Sanders said.

In other words, while the heart of the world’s financial market will always be in New York, she said, its computerized brains are now more likely to be located here in Atlanta.