Academy Offers Clients Block Trading Via BIDS
Traders Magazine Online News, January 16, 2013
Academy Securities, a veteran-owned broker-dealer, will now offer its clients the ability to get their block trades done directly and quietly through BIDS Trading.
The goal for Academy is twofold. First, by sending orders to BIDs it can offer its clients more liquidity and in size - thus pumping up its own trading volumes. Second, it offers clients a way to pay their myriad obligations, such as research chits.
Chance Mims
Academy, a Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise and Service Disabled Veteran Owned Business and BIDS, an alternative trading system, signed a sponsorship agreement today allowing for the California-based broker clients' orders to go directly to the block trading system for execution.
"We are excited to be a sponsoring broker dealer with BIDS Trading," said Chance Mims, Chief Executive Officer of Academy. "This relationship enables our clients to access liquidity in the markets and enhances our current platform."
Academy is not executing orders for clients with BIDS.
Jamie Atwell
This new partnership came about from an Academy client who wanted to trade directly with BIDS, said Jamie Atwell, director of trading at Academy. At that time, the broker did not have a relationship with the ATS. But given the current trading environment of lower volumes and cost savings, doing business with BIDs seemed right, Atwell told Traders Magazine.
"We look at our relationships and add to them constantly," Atwell said. "The ability to access block liquidity is what we didn't have before. This is another for way for us to provide best execution for clients in this trading environment."
Not to mention, by using BIDs, Academy can now more easily get paid for the third-party research it provides more easily. The firm offers third-party research from Washington D.C. -based Opportunities Development Group, a veteran-run consultancy. It also offers commission recapture and sharing programs.
Academy has also quietly entered an agreement to execute orders through another block trading venue - Liquidnet. Unlike its BIDS arrangement, Atwell told Traders Magazine that Academy trades directly with Liquidnet's trading desk.
"Finding the natural contra and providing more liquidity has never been more important than now," Atwell said. And he's no stranger to how Liquidnet works, as Atwell used the venue while he traded on buyside at Nicholas Investment Partners, American Express Asset Management and Nicholas Applegate Capital Management.
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