Aqua Securities

Aqua operates a block trading solution that is completely different from anything else. Aqua links the block liquidity of hundreds of brokers and institutions directly to the desktops of the largest institutional investors. Aqua's value proposition is pretty succinct: eliminate the information leakage from block trading and you can gain access to n... ew block liquidity. Eliminate the information leakage and you can reduce an order's interaction with high-frequency liquidity, achieve larger average trade sizes, and improve a trader's overall performance. Aqua's simple, intuitive solution brings the elusive large order directly and conveniently to the institutional trader's desktop. Orders submitted to Aqua are narrowcast to buyside traders holding the contra order among the idle shares in their order management blotters. Buyside traders receive large, priced, executable orders that fit them exactly, displayed prominently on the screen. Aqua makes no intrusive inquires and takes no proprietary client information into a central server. Aqua's method permits clients to keep their order information to themselves. Instead of extracting data from the buyside, Aqua only ever delivers information to buyside traders. Aqua's encrypted market data is essentially dark to everyone except a buyside trader working the contra side. Only a buyside trader holding the contra-side may view an order resting in Aqua. And nobody is told when an order becomes visible in this way, so no inferences can be drawn and no leakage escapes. Aqua is the true alternative that is creating new opportunities for traders to find block liquidity, to achieve larger average trade sizes and to improve overall trading performance.Read More