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But back home in the Big Apple, the pair are about to engage in something closer to hand-to-hand combat. The NYSE will launch a new electronic trading system this week that allows investors to by-pass its historic floor traders.The initiative is its latest attempt to claw back some of the share trading that has leaked over to automated trading platforms in recent years, and made Nasdaq a major rival for listings of all sizes.And the NYSE is also waging a lobbying campaign to deprive Nasdaq of as much as 5 per cent of its revenues, in a dispute over who gets to publish information about off-exchange trading.The competitive threat from Nasdaq and others, though, is so acute that the NYSE now accounts for barely 70 per cent of the trading in shares of the companies listed on it. And it has prompted Mr Thain to accelerate the roll-out of a new hybrid system that introduces electronic trading, while still allowing some trades to be routed through the trading floor.Lucent Technologies - the telecoms equipment group - will on Friday become the first company to trade under the hybrid system, which could be extended to cover other stocks this summer.Mr Thain, a former Goldman Sachs executive who joined the NYSE in 2004, is trying to modernise the 214-year-old exchange in the teeth of traditionalists wedded to its trading floor. Junius Peake, a former trustee of the National Association of Securities Dealers and now professor of finance at the University of Northern Colorado, said: "In the end, I think, the NYSE's customers are going to say the hybrid system is too damn complicated, and its shareholders are going to demand a cheaper system. They will make their big money when the NYSE closes the floor, gets rid of the costs of having all those people running around on it, and replace it with a bank of computers."Meanwhile, Mr Thain is lobbying regulators to strip Nasdaq of its role in reporting trades that happen, away from the public markets, in-house at the giant investment banks.These are increasingly settling clients orders using stock that they have on their own books, cutting out the costs of using an exchange.

These trades are published via Nasdaq, earning the NYSE's rival some $25m a year, 5 per cent of its income.The NYSE says this is unfair, and the war of words is raising the temperature between Mr Greifeld and Mr Thain at a time when Nasdaq appears to have outmanoeuvred the NYSE in the battle for the London Stock Exchange. Both men would like to take over the London market, but Nasdaq has bought a blocking stake of 19 per cent in the past few weeks, while Mr Thain has been busy integrating the NYSE with its merger partner, electronic trading group Archipelago.. The oil industry is to channel millions of dollars to US Congressional election campaigns this year as part of a desperate plan to squash calls for a windfall tax on their record profits. Industry giants including Exxon Mobil, BP and ChevronTexaco have faced huge criticism with petrol prices soaring past $3 a gallon. They fear political pressures will intensify as November's mid-term elections loom. Executives have also been trying to get their message directly to the public, saying pump prices reflect a global oil price that is out of their control.The industry has spent an estimated $20m (£11m) this year on media adverts, and Exxon's chief executive, Rex Tillerson, took the extraordinary step last week of appearing on NBC's breakfast-time Today programme to defend the sector.He said Exxon and others were using the proceeds of $70 oil to boost refining capacity and launch new exploration projects. But he was unapologetic about his company's $8bn profit for the first quarter - more than $1,000 per second.Mr Tillerson said: "We work for the shareholders, and the investors who own our stock are over two million Americans. Our job is to go out and make the most money for those people so their pensions are secure so that they see the benefits of our work.

We're in the business to make money."The costs of political donations and other lobbying efforts by the biggest oil companies this year are forecast to far outstrip last year's $30m.Many Democrats are pressing for a windfall tax on the industry. So far, legislative moves have been limited to a Bill that outlaws "price gouging" - or collusion to raise prices.But the industry is concerned that the issue will become even more prominent if oil prices do not subside before the driving season, when American families fill up the tank for summer holiday road trips.. NTL, which recently completed the acquisition of cable rival Telewest, will announce this week that 4,000 UK jobs are to be axed. The company will give an update on its plans to integrate the two businesses when it announces first-quarter results on Tuesday. NTL will say that Telewest's Woking head office will be closed and some of the staff moved to NTL's existing head office, in Hook, Hampshire. It is also understood that most of the combined group's call centres will be outsourced, with some of the jobs going to offshore centres in India.NTL, which like former rival Telewest grew by acquiring regional cable companies, has recently cut its 13 call centres in the UK to seven. It already has two outsourcing deals with IBM and Fujitsu.More outsourcing deals are expected to follow shortly as part of the restructuring to be announced this week.In addition to the job losses in call centres and head offices, cuts in marketing operations are predicted.The two companies employ a combined workforce of just over 17,000 in the UK.

The reductions to be unveiled this week mean that almost one in four employees will lose their posts. Last week, Orange, the mobile phone group, announced 2,000 job losses.It is expected that the full integration of NTL and Telewest will take up to 18 months, so some of the losses will not be immediate. Voluntary redundancies and vacant positions not being filled will make up some of the cuts. But it is expected that many will have to come through compulsory redundancies.NTL has indicated that merging the two businesses will save £250m over the next three years.Analysts at investment bank UBS reckon that the restructuring will cost £30m in the current financial year, with the first savings from the acquisition starting to feed through to the bottom line next year.The long-awaited takeover was completed in March. NTL has also reshuffled its board, with Stephen Burch becoming president and chief executive in January, joining from US cable company Comcast.More upheaval will follow with the more recent acquisition by NTL of Virgin Mobile.