Actman: Offering our trading technology, Lightspeed Trader, to Wedbush is an important step toward delivering a standalone, customized client experience to clearing firms
New York, NY, May 21, 2009 – Lightspeed Financial LLC, a leading provider of direct access brokerage, trading and advanced order routing services for professional traders, today announced that it has fully integrated its trading technology and risk management solutions with Wedbush Morgan Securities (“Wedbush”), a nationally prominent financial services firm and leader in high-frequency clearing services.
Through the integration, Wedbush can offer its proprietary trading clients access to the Lightspeed Trading front-end, Lightspeed Trader, as well as Lightspeed Risk, its powerful risk-monitoring tool.
Andrew Actman, Chief Strategy Officer of Lightspeed Financial said, “This strategic alliance with Wedbush is an integral first step toward broadening the reach of our trading technology business by integrating with more clearing firms. We recognize that not all clients require the complete suite of trading technology and brokerage services offered by Lightspeed Trading. Having the ability to custom tailor the Lightspeed experience and deliver our advanced, fully integrated technology solutions as a standalone product enables us to reach a much broader segment of the trading community that is hungry for the speed, stability and scalability that only Lightspeed Trader can consistently deliver. We look forward to working with Wedbush on this exciting initiative.”
“Wedbush’s goal is to provide proprietary trading broker-dealers and high volume trading clients with the most robust, holistic trading experience available to meet their demands and maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace,” said Jeff Bell, Executive Vice President, Clearing & Technology Group, Wedbush Morgan Securities. “Integrating Lightspeed Trading’s front-end technology into our existing architecture offers clients complete straight through processing from order entry to trade settlement. This integration provides our mutual clients with a leading front-end trading system and the reliable and efficient trade processing that Wedbush is known for.”
Both firms anticipate full integration of the Lightspeed Gateway platform by year end, which will provide Wedbush’s high-frequency professional broker-dealers and clients utilizing algorithmic or black box trading strategies with a complete technology infrastructure for high performance direct-market access as well as risk management tools and co-location services within NASDAQ’s datacenter.
About Lightspeed Financial, LLC
Headquartered in New York City, Lightspeed Financial operates through three wholly-owned subsidiaries:
Lightspeed Trading, LLC operates as a fully disclosed introducing broker-dealer and FINRA and NFA member. The Company offers securities and direct access brokerage, trading and advanced order routing services to their customers utilizing Lightspeed’s software products.
Lightspeed Technologies, LLC serves as the Company’s technology development subsidiary. Lightspeed develops and operates Lightspeed Trader, Lightspeed’s Direct Market Access trading software application; Lightspeed Gateway, Lightspeed algorithmic trading offering; Lightspeed Risk, a real-time risk management application; and Lightspeed Admin, Middle Office Technology suite. Utilizing a number of proprietary technologies, Lightspeed offers these products and more to broker-dealers, institutional entities and professional traders.
Lightspeed Education, LLC delivers educational products to the Lightspeed Trading, LLC customer community. These products include third party educational tools, webinars and the Lightspeed Spotlight social community. (www.lightspeed.com)
About Wedbush Morgan Securities
Founded in 1955, Wedbush Morgan Securities is a leading financial services and investment firm consistently ranked the #1 Liquidity Provider on NASDAQ. The firm provides correspondent clearing and execution as well as private and institutional brokerage, investment banking, equities research, public finance, fixed income sales and trading, and asset management to individual, institutional and issuing clients. Headquartered in Los Angeles, with over 80 sales offices and over 120 correspondent offices nationwide, Wedbush focuses on client financial safety, continuity, and advanced technology. (www.wedbush.com)
Press Contact:
Mike Boccio
Sloane & Company
(212) 446-1867
mboccio@sloanepr.com
