ONLINE STOCK TRADE

To become a professional commodity broker in the United States, an individual must take and pass the General Securities Representative Exam (Series 7) and in most states, the Uniform Securities Agent State Law Examination (Series 63). To take the test, you must be sponsored by "a member firm, a self-regulatory organization (SRO), or an exchange." This requirement, as well as the administration of the test, is under the jurisdiction of FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Direct access trading is a technology which allows stock traders to trade directly with market makers or specialists, rather than trading through stock brokers.
Direct access trading systems use front-end trading software and high-speed computer links to stock exchanges such as NASDAQ, NYSE and the various electronic communication networks. Direct access trading system transactions are executed in a fraction of a second and their confirmations are instantly displayed on the trader's computer screen. This is in contrast to a typical conventional online trader who requires seconds or minutes to execute a trade.

Most direct-access firms charge commissions based on your trading volume, usually in terms of calendar months. Increased trading activity reduces commission for each trade. It can be as cheap as you can trade by 1 point or pip difference, in that it is a must for scalpers.

Unlike traditional online brokerages, direct-access brokerages usually pass through the exchange fees involved in trading to customers. Examples are specialist fees, Electronic Communications Networks fees, exchange modify and cancel fees, clearing fees, regulatory fees etc. Commissions are generally on a per share basis and typically around 0.005 USD per share. For example, the commission would be $8 for a 1000 share transaction at $0.008 per share.

Some firms set fee schedules instead of passing exchange fees on directly. This improves the transparency of fee administration. For example, you do not need to change the charge any time there is a change in the exchange fees. Some fees may be complex to calculate or variable. It is not easy to write them on the fee schedules.
Direct access trading is primarily for self-helped and active traders who value speed of execution and try hard to minimize costs and slippage. Also they get to take care of themselves and make trade decisions on their own (without the help of brokers or advisors). These people typically include:

day traders - they trade a lot per trading day. Direct access brokers can give them front-end trading software and platforms and offer deep discounts on commissions and brokerage fees.

scalpers - they trade in a large volume for small gains. Slow execution may kill profits, and even incur losses.

momentum (event-based) traders - their trading decisions based on news or incidents happened in normal trading days. When the news breaks out, the market will usually become very volatile. They need lightning fast execution to enable them to grasp these opportunities; the difference between success or failure may be determined in just a second. A delay of seconds to minutes, as is common in traditional online trading, would therefore not be acceptable to such traders.

momentum (technical-based) day or swing traders - they trade on high momentum stocks, in which it has high volatility. They need their orders executed lightning fast, and may need to get out quickly if the market goes against them.
Direct access trading is not typically for:

(long-term) investors - slippage is important to frequent traders, but it amounts to only a dollar or so for each trade. They hold a position for a long time. Each trade may earn them substantial profits to cover those small slippage losses. Some direct-access brokers charge inactivity and platform fees. These costs may not justify direct access trading for long-term investors.
novice traders - Direct-access trading typically requires experience and knowledge.
inactive traders

Straight-through processing (STP) enables the entire trade process for capital markets and payment transactions to be conducted electronically without the need for re-keying or manual intervention, subject to legal and regulatory restrictions. The concept has also been transferred into other sectors including energy (oil, gas) trading and banking, and financial planning.

Currently, the entire trade lifecycle, from initiation to settlement, is a complex labyrinth of manual processes, taking several days. Such processing for equities transactions is commonly referred to as T+3 processing, as it usually takes three business days from the "Trade" being executed to the trade being settled. Industry practitioners, particularly in the US, viewed STP as meaning at least 'same-day' settlement or faster, ideally minutes or even seconds. The goal was to minimise settlement risk for the execution of a trade and its settlement and clearing to occur simultaneously. However, for this to be achieved, multiple market participants must realize high levels of STP. In particular, transaction data would need to be made available on a just-in-time basis which is a considerably harder goal to achieve for the financial services community than the application of STP alone. After all, STP itself is merely an efficient use of computers for transaction processing.

Historically, STP solutions were needed to help financial markets firms move to one-day trade settlement of equity transactions, as well as to meet the global demand resulting from the explosive growth of online trading. Now the concepts of STP are applied to reduce systemic and operational risk and to improve certainty of settlement and minimize operational costs.

STP was introduced on the New York Stock Exchange in 1995 through a wireless hand held computer (HHC) designed and developed by NYSE member Michael Einersen. On September 25, 1995 he executed 1000 shares of IBM through this HHC ending a 203 year process of paper transactions and ushering in an era of automated trading. For the first time all the information needed for a transaction on the floor to clear was now available electronically at the same time as the trade. Einersen founded the first completely automated NYSE member firm, Agency Execution and Information Services of New York (AXIS). In 1998 Automated Security Clearing bought AXIS and integrated it into its BRASS system which at that time handled up to 70% of trading on NASDAQ, the largest electronic exchange in the world. STP on the NYSE was now complete. The original AXIS device is on exhibit at the Museum of American Finance in New York City.

When fully realized, STP provides asset managers, broker/dealers, custodians, banks and other financial services players with tremendous benefits, including greatly shortened processing cycles, reduced settlement risk and lower operating costs. Some industry analysts believe that STP is not an achievable goal in the sense that firms are unlikely to find the cost/benefit to reach 100% automation. Instead they promote the idea of improving levels of internal STP within a firm while encouraging groups of firms to work together to improve the quality of the automation of transaction information between themselves, either bilaterally or as a community of users (external STP). Other analysts, however, believe that STP will be achieved with the emergence of business process interoperability.

Electronic trading, sometimes called etrading, is a method of trading securities (such as stocks, and bonds), foreign currency, and exchange traded derivatives electronically. It uses information technology to bring together buyers and sellers through electronic media to create a virtual market place. NASDAQ, NYSE Arca and Globex are examples of electronic market places. Exchanges that facilitate electronic trading in the United States are regulated by either the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and are generally called electronic communications networks or ECNs.

Etrading is widely believed to be more reliable than older methods of trade processing, but glitches and cancelled trades do occur.
Historically, stock markets were physical locations where buyers and sellers met and negotiated. With the improvement in communications technology in the late 20th century, the need for a physical location became less important, as traders could transact from remote locations.

One of the earliest examples of widespread electronic trading was on Globex, the CME Group’s electronic trading platform that allows access to a variety of financial, foreign exchange and commodity markets. The Chicago Board Of Trade produced a rival system that was based on Oak Trading Systems’ Oak platform which facilitated ‘E Open Outcry,’ an electronic trading platform that allowed for electronic trading to take place alongside the trading that took place in the CBOT pits. Oak Trading Systems continues to offer access to global markets via various software applications, including demo packages, and products are available through reputable brokerage firms such as EHedger LLC
Electronic trading makes transactions easier to complete, monitor, clear, and settle. NASDAQ, set up in 1971, was the world's first electronic stock market, though it originally operated as an electronic bulletin board, rather than offering straight through processing (STP). By early 2007, organizations like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange were creating electronic trading platforms to support the emerging interest in trading within the foreign exchange market.
Today many investment firms on both the buy side and sell side are increasing their spending on technology for electronic trading. Many floor traders and brokers are being r\from the trading process. Traders are relying on algorithms to analyze market conditions and then execute their orders.

Dates of introduction of electronic trading by leading exchange in 120 countries is provided in a Journal of Finance article published in 2005 Financial market design and the equity premium: Electronic vs. floor trading, Leading academic research in this field is conducted by Professor Ian Domowitz and Professor Pankaj Jain.
There are, broadly, two types of trading in the financial markets:
Business-to-business (B2B) trading, often conducted on exchanges, where large investment banks and brokers trade directly with one another, transacting large amounts of securities, and Business-to-client (B2C) trading, where retail (e.g. individuals buying and selling relatively small amounts of stocks and shares) and institutional clients (e.g. hedge funds, fund managers or insurance companies, trading far larger amounts of securities) buy and sell from brokers or dealers, who act as middle-men between the clients and the B2B markets.

While the majority of retail trading probably now happens over the Internet, retail trading volumes are dwarfed by institutional, inter-dealer and exchange trading.
Before the advent of eTrading, exchange trading would typically happen on the floor of an exchange, where traders in brightly colored jackets (to identify which firm they worked for) would shout and gesticulate at one another - a process known as open outcry or "pit trading" (the exchange floors were often pit-shaped - circular, sloping downwards to the centre, so that the traders could see one another).
For instruments which aren't exchange-traded (e.g. U.S. treasury bonds), the inter-dealer market substitutes for the exchange. This is where dealers trade directly with one another or through inter-dealer brokers (i.e. companies like GFI Group, BGC Partners and Garban, who act as middle-men between dealers such as investment banks). This type of trading traditionally took place over the phone but brokers are beginning to offer eTrading services.

Similarly, B2C trading traditionally happened over the phone and, while much of it still does, more brokers are allowing their clients to place orders using electronic systems. Many retail (or "discount") brokers (e.g. Charles Schwab, E-Trade) went online during the late 1990s and most retail stock-broking probably takes place over the web now.
Larger institutional clients, however, will generally place electronic orders via proprietary ECNs such as Bloomberg, TradeWeb or CanDeal (which connect institutional clients to several dealers), or using their brokers' proprietary software.

Etrading systems are typically proprietary software (etrading platforms), running on COTS hardware and operating systems, often using common underlying protocols, such as TCP/IP.

Exchanges typically develop their own systems (sometimes referred to as matching engines), although sometimes an exchange will use another exchange's technology (e.g. e-cbot, the Chicago Board of Trade's electronic trading platform, uses LIFFE's Connect system), and some newer electronic exchanges use 3rd-party specialist software providers (e.g. the Budapest stock exchange and the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange) use automated trading software originally written and implemented by FMSC, an Australian technology company that was acquired by Computershare, and whose intellectual property rights are now owned by OMX.
Exchanges and ECNs generally offer two methods of accessing their systems -
an exchange-provided GUI, which the trader runs on his or her desktop and connects directly to the exchange/ECN, and
an API which allows dealers to plug their own in-house systems directly into the exchange/ECN's.

From an infrastructure point of view, most exchanges will provide "gateways" which sit on a companies' network, acting in a manner similar to a proxy, connecting back to the exchange's central system.

ECNs will generally forego the gateway/proxy, and their GUI or the API will connect directly to a central system, across a leased line.
Many brokers develop their own systems, although there are some third-party solutions providers specializing in this area. Like ECNs, brokers will often offer both a GUI and an API (although it's likely that a slightly smaller proportion of brokers offer an API, as compared with ECNs), and connectivity is typically direct to the broker's systems, rather than through a gateway.

Investment banks and other dealers have far more complex technology requirements, as they have to interface with multiple exchanges, brokers and multi-dealer platforms, as well as their own pricing, P&L, trade processing and position-keeping systems. Some banks will develop their own etrading systems in-house, but this can be costly, especially when they need to connect to many exchanges, ECNs and brokers. There are a number of companies who offer solutions in this area.
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, or e-business consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. The use of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.

A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website, but most electronic commerce involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers have electronic commerce presence on the World Wide Web.

Electronic commerce that is conducted between businesses is referred to as business-to-business or B2B. B2B can be open to all interested parties (e.g. commodity exchange) or limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market). Electronic commerce that is conducted between businesses and consumers, on the other hand, is referred to as business-to-consumer or B2C. This is the type of electronic commerce conducted by companies such as Amazon.com. Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce where the buyer is directly online to the seller's computer usually via the internet. There is no intermediary service. The sale and purchase transaction is completed electronically and interactively in real-time such as Amazon.com for new books. If an intermediary is present, then the sale and purchase transaction is called electronic commerce such as eBay.com.
Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions.

Economists have theorised that e-commerce ought to lead to intensified price competition, as it increases consumers' ability to gather information about products and prices. Research by four economists at the University of Chicago has found that the growth of online shopping has also affected industry structure in two areas that have seen significant growth in e-commerce, bookshops and travel agencies. Generally, larger firms have grown at the expense of smaller ones, as they are able to use economies of scale and offer lower prices. The lone exception to this pattern has been the very smallest category of bookseller, shops with between one and four employees, which appear to have withstood the trend.