LaBranche is the only publicly-traded NYSE Specialist firm and it's nice to be able to look closely at their very profitable business. Over 80% of their revenues come from "principal trading" and their margins (pre-tax: 48%, after-tax: 24%) make obvious the advantage of having exclusive access to a central, consolidated limit order book.

What's interesting about the market now is that ECNs like Island are handling a huge share of the order flow in certain issues (like the QQQ) and their limit order book is completely open and available for everyone to see.

Visit Island's Data Services to see the cool applications they are developing to view Island's limit order book in real-time. I like to think that the ECNs are the Anti-Specialists, but the Specialists probably like to think the ECNs are the Anti-Christ.