IEX is a broker-dealer designed to equip investors with the tools that they need to succeed in todays challenging market. IEX is designed to help return the stock market to its original purpose. It is the first ever registered Alternative Trading System, commonly referred to with the acronym ATS. A number of hedge funds, mutual funds and wealthy individuals provided the funding for IEX.

Some investors might know of ATSs as “dark pools”. This is an exclusive trading forum that the general public typically cant access. Most dark pool trades are conducted by financial institutions. Dark pool trades arent offered on the main exchanges so they are fully confidential. This allows institutional investors to purchase and sell significant amounts of securities without tipping their hands to competitors (or the public) and consequently, impacting the market.

Michael Lewiss famous non-fiction book, Flash Boys, has made IEX quite popular. The point of IEX is to provide a means for institutional investors to level the playing field with the worlds largest banks. These banks typically use incredibly fast computers to gain a timing advantage over other traders. This is known as high frequency trading. IEX actually slows down orders to prevent high frequency traders from gaining a significant competitive advantage.

The company makes use of a 38 mile optical fiber coil that provides a delay of 700 microseconds. It prevents other traders from executing dark pool transactions before IEXs unique pricing algorithms can be processed. Customers enjoy the perks of IEXs True Price Matching Engine that makes use of real time pricing data to prevent predatory traders from obtaining information before everyone else. This way, those predatory institutions cant act upon such information to generate a lightning fast profit. In short, IEX is taking the competitive advantage away from Wall Streets titans. This populist mantra is precisely why IEX has become so popular.

In December of 13, IEX exchanged at over 40 million shares a day. This exceeded AMEX. IEX trading volume has gone up three fold since the first quarter. In September 14, IEXs average daily volume was around 98 million shares. Investors have really responded to the companys “play fair” approach to trading.

Brokers, buy-side clients and those who would like their brokers to trade through IEX are all eligible to trade through IEX. IEX charges a fixed fee for the majority of orders and a flat percentage on smaller orders. Order types include market, limit, IEX Check and midpoint peg.

Traders love the fact that IEXs optical fiber coil prevents others from beating them to the punch. It brings some sanity and fairness back to a typically predatory market environment. The companys patent pending technology takes away the seemingly inherent advantages of the high scale institutional investors. As IEX states, the company offers is a unique market “that works for investors”.