Block Trading Facility - BTF
Categories: Investing, Stocks, Trading, Mutual Funds
A block trading facility (BTF) is not actually a building, but a specialized brokerage company where traders buy or sell a large number of securities outside of the markets open to the public. Oooh. Exclusive.
Large, institutional investors such as retirement funds, universities, banks, or insurance companies looking for a quick sale at a certain price might use a BTF for big lots (not the bulk discount store) of a stock. The BTF traders then hit the phones looking for other brokers who might specialize in this type of stock to help sell the shares “en masse,” or in as large lot sizes as possible. This way, there will be little or no effect on prices or volumes in the public stock market...almost like a private handshake between a buyer and seller. It can even be a secret handshake, if you're willing to put that much work into it.
Let’s say GargantuBank USA wants to unload 20,000 shares of Giggle, Inc. at $15 per share, so they contact Sell Today Block Trading Facility. Sell Today traders might break up the lot into smaller ones of 4,000 shares, and each one of the smaller lots will be sold through a separate broker. The effect on the general market should be minimized, while the “big guys” can do their thing.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is a Block Trade?22 Views
Finance a la shmoop.. what is a block trade? yeah you think this was the yellow Marvin [A monopoly board]
Gardens trio bartered for the green Pennsylvania Avenue set but it's not
instead a block trade happens when a huge, you know block yes clever naming
there of shares needs to get sold think company founder just got divorced and [Man and woman sitting on a sofa]
old husband wants the dough fast she just wants to get rid of him you know
lose 185 pounds so of her 28 million shares she or rather her bank or brokers
put together a group of a half a dozen buyers who then buy the stock in a clean [Stock is dusted]
block trade there's a strange paradigm here sometimes companies shares are
thinly traded or not liquid meaning that there isn't a ton of volume every day in
the stock and large institutions wanna buy in big like to the tune of 5 million [Big institutions buy stock]
shares but if they buy 50,000 shares a day in the market well they'll likely
move the stock from say 18 bucks a share to 25 bucks a share by the time they're
done buying so sometimes supply of block trades is constrained and the trade
usually with price negotiated well beforehand goes off at a premium to
where it was regularly trading like that eighteen dollar figure maybe implies a
block trade that happens at 20 bucks the seller is usually happy because if they
dump the shares at fifty thousand a day into the market while they'd likely [Dump truck dumps stocks on the floor]
drive down the stock price to fifteen dollars or less in the process got it?
and this way they got a $2 premium above that 18 bucks 20 minus eighteen two
dollars there yeah and the institution is happy because now they own the [Institution smiling]
however many millions of shares that they own at a twenty dollar base price
instead of something likely much higher if they've gone into the market and
bought em, so that's when supply is constrained in a thinly traded low
volume in demand stock much more common as a block trade where there's a whole
lot of supply coming on board and not nearly the demand of buyers or investors
to take over the stock so it trades at a meaningful discount to whatever price it
was trading at like in the eighteen dollar a share case well maybe that
block trade happens at 17.20 or 16.50 or
thereabout so that's a block trade and here's a blockhead yeah ask your parents [Blockhead figure appears]
if you don't get the reference here...