By Jay Woods, Chief Market Strategist, DriveWealth Institutional
The DriveWealth team recently welcomed partners from four different continents to our Jersey City office and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for our inaugural Broker Bootcamp – a hands-on mock trading experience hosted live from the floor of the NYSE. In order to teach our partners the ins and outs of trading, we went old school. We rolled back the clock and reenacted what it used to be like on a crowded and active trading floor.
To make sure our guests got the most of their experience, they were broken into two groups, each led by an experienced floor trader to coach them through the ropes. The groups were given their trading assignments and the games began – each guest, or “new broker,” was required to take orders from their clerks to execute in the appropriate trading crowd. Once in the crowd, they had to work with the other brokers and negotiate with a designated market maker to obtain the best execution price for their customers.
During the event, we also discussed a topic that we’re often asked about here at DriveWealth: Why can stocks sometimes stop trading throughout the day? So what’s the answer? Well, there’s a few…and throughout Broker Bootcamp, we made sure our partners got a taste of many instances that might turn this question into a reality. Some of these include:
The news! When a listed company has a pending news event, they can request, through the NYSE, to stop trading. In this case, a company will pause trading so they have the opportunity to circulate priority news about their company. Our partners got to experience this first hand as we walked through this type of event and what a reopening looks like after the news has been released.
Additionally, sometimes trading can be halted during a volatility pause – or a limit up, limit down (LULD) situation. We explained why and how this volatility pause may occur, before ultimately walking through the reopening process.
After the close of our trading simulation, we gathered to recap the day, discuss how the markets have evolved, and to answer remaining questions from our partners. Partners also had the opportunity to visit DriveWealth Institutional’s trading booth so they could see where the magic happens – where and how trades are electronically routed and executed through our systems.
But it wasn’t just the mock trading event that we were excited about! We also hosted partners throughout the week at our office to discuss the latest and greatest enhancements to our platform, such as Extended Hours Trading and OTC Trading, and more importantly, learn how we can help them meet the needs of their customers even more so we can embed finance into their daily lives – together.
If you’d like to learn more about our Broker Bootcamp program, please reach out to your Partner Solutions Group representative or reach out at [email protected].