Bley opts for EdgeTrade’s Quantitative Service Bureau offering

Launched last fall, seventeen firms are now using QSB, which enables institutional broker-dealers – in particular boutique, minority owned and research-driven firms – to succeed in the increasingly competitive algorithmic and electronic trading business by leveraging innovative technology, integration tools and services developed by and offered through EdgeTrade.

‘In a post Reg NMS world, brokers of all sizes will need to adhere to best execution and related compliance requirements that QSB can facilitate,’ says EdgeTrade CEO, Joseph Wald.

Adopted last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Reg NMS is a series of initiatives designed to modernize and strengthen the national market system for equity securities.

‘Some broker-dealers are ceding too much ground to bulge bracket firms, because they lack the resources to develop sophisticated trading and execution tools. QSB can help them stave off the competition and most importantly, deliver greater trade execution value to their buy-side clients,’ adds Wald.

Client firms of EdgeTrade, which number more than 150 in North America and Europe, include hedge funds, mutual funds, asset management firms and broker-dealers. EdgeTrade’s overarching mission is to empower traders with an unconflicted, agency-only model that offers high-speed and quality of anonymous execution, coupled with innovative trading technology.

‘Our firm prides itself on maintaining a culture of best execution, anonymity and compliance,’ says Bley Investment Group Founder & President, Laura Haley Bley, CFA. ‘An important addition to our existing FIX-based trading platform, QSB helps further this commitment through tools and services that allow us to create our own customized and private-labeled agency algorithmic offering.’

Bley has integrated its order management system, Arrowhead Pipes, with EdgeTrade and is executing its own trades. Bley Investment Group provides trade executions for equity and fixed income securities on behalf of its institutional clients including money managers, banks, corporations, endowment funds, trust accounts and retirement funds.

QSB is EdgeTrade’s umbrella of algorithmic and DMA offerings designed to support institutional broker-dealers with technology resources to address a variety of needs, including: improving their existing algorithmic trading desk performance with the addition of EdgeTrade’s agency-based strategies; approaching the algorithmic trading space as a new entrant with advanced strategies and anonymous execution services; offering a private-label, completely confidential algorithmic offering to their buy-side clients; and growing and diversifying their menu of electronic trading services to include, for example, automation of corporate buyback orders by private-labeling EdgeTrade’s 10b-18 algorithm. QSB also provides firms with the option to integrate these services into their own front-end (eg OMS), or private-label Execution Management SystemTM (EMSTM), EdgeTrade’s independent, agency front-end platform for single stock and basket equity orders.

‘QSB is designed to assist sell-side firms in capturing more order flow, regardless of their current infrastructure,’ says EdgeTrade President, Kyle Zasky. ‘These firms can elect to use their own front-end systems and market connections, or private-label EMS and execute, anonymously, through EdgeTrade’s lines.’

Background note: Founded in 1990, Bley Investment Group is a licensed broker-dealer with institutional and individual investors worldwide. Bley has direct access to major exchanges and ECNs through its proprietary trading desk. The firm also offers independent research through business arm, Aperion Group.  Bley is a women-owned broker-dealer and accredited as a Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, Minority/Women Owned Business Enterprise and Historically Underutilized Business. For more information on Bley Investment Group, visit www.BleyInvestments.com