AX Trading LLC announced today that it had its first day of trading over 1 million shares. According to Bloomberg trade advertising service, AX Trading traded 1,123,200 shares on August 7, 2012.
“This is a great achievement for The AX. While we recognize that most of the trading volume on The AX yesterday was in a single, rather low-priced stock, PWAV (NASDAQ: PWAV, Powerwave Technologies, Inc. 0.390 -0.018, -4.29%), a million shares is still a million shares,” said AX Trading Network CEO Kevin Callahan. “Besides, the trade that helped get us over the finish line was a block of VFC (NYSE: VFC, V.F. Corporation $151.50, +1.79, +1.20%), which has a stock price greater than $150.” According to the Bloomberg trade reporting page, the 14,000 share block trade of V.F. Corporation was by far the largest print of the day, outside of the open and close.
Continued Callahan: “The transactions in these two very different stocks demonstrate that The AX model serves the needs of market participants in a unique way. Driven by clients, The AX offers capabilities in trading US equities regardless of exchange listing, type, or size that are simply not available in any other venue.”
The AX Trading Network (“The AX”) is the new Alternative Trading System (ATS) that allows traders to start their own auctions in any stock at any time. “Initiators” of AX auctions can also decide how much information to share about the auction and what counterparties to invite. The AX is approved to trade all U.S. securities but does not trade pink sheet stocks.
The AX is one of the only trading venues where buyers and sellers can conduct block trades at the prices they want to trade at rather than simply being matched at the midpoint of a spread that may be narrow but also very thin, often as little as 100 shares a side. Under the trade-through provision of Reg. NMS, AX is required to sweep all displayed liquidity that is priced better than the block price. In the case of PWAV, several block trades went up outside the NBBO and AX performed a market sweep.
“The AX helps buyers and sellers find outsized liquidity in an environment that protects their anonymity and their trading intentions,” said Pete Jenkins, President of AX Trading. “It is one of the only venues where buyers and sellers can trade where they want to trade.”
The AX Trading Network was launched in November 2011 and had its first 1 million share month in March, 2012. Now, the firm has had its first million share day. “We look forward to our next milestone, when two or more courageous traders put up the first 1million share trade on The AX.” said Callahan.