Daytraders and other active investors crave information on stocks like dogs sniffing out a side of bacon, and Charles Schwab hopes to feed that hunger by signing a deal to provide its active traders access to the most comprehensive source of NASDAQ information available.
The discount broker has purchased an enterprise license for NASDAQ TotalView, the third and highest level of trading data products offered by the exchange. Schwab plans to incorporate TotalView data into CyberTrader, its online brokerage service for what it calls very active traders. It also plans to make the data available to its mass trading market through its Street Smart Pro software application. Trey Robinson, director of sales and marketing for Schwab, says the active traders that are being targeted by the enterprise license deal include day traders, but also investors who do swing trades or make heavy use of Web-enabled technology as part of their trading strategies. Robinson estimates users will have access to "15 to 20 percent more" information than what's currently available.
By linking to TotalView on an enterprise license basis, it becomes the first broker to ink such a deal with the exchange-though Scottrade offers the service to several thousand of its customers on an opt-in basis. "By using TotalView, Schwab's able to offer an unprecedented view of the total market," says Adena Friedman, evp of corporate strategy and data products for NASDAQ.
NASDAQ offers three levels of trading data products, with users required to buy into the more basic levels before stacking on the more sophisticated services. The first, and most basic data service, includes the generic price quotes of securities on the exchange, and is available at any time, and is used by more than one million non professional users every month. The second level contains more in depth information including offers from market participants, and is used by about 100,000 non professionals each month. The third level, TotalView, includes every quote and order, and will likely be used by about 25,000 non professional users each month after the Schwab deal.
