initial public offerings (IPOs) trading on American exchanges

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Virtu Financial (VIRT) began trading on the NASDAQ on 16 April 2015


  • Virtu Financial, a high-frequency electronic trading firm and market maker, raised $314 million by offering 16.5 million shares at $19, the high end of the range of $17 to $19.  3Virtu Financial initially filed confidentially on 12/26/2013. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Sandler O'Neill, BMO Capital Markets, Citi, Credit Suisse, Evercore Partners and UBS Investment Bank acted as lead managers on the deal.
  • The company makes markets—meaning it offers to buy and sell securities in the hope of capturing a tiny spread between those prices—for securities traded on more than 200 exchanges and other private venues around the world. 


Virtu’s reliance on ultrafast telecommunications networks and computer algorithms to do its trading has sparked criticism in the past year from some market participants and observers who believe firms such as Virtu have an unfair advantage over everyday investors. At the forefront of that criticism was writer Michael Lewis, who in his best-selling book “Flash Boys” argued the market was rigged in favor of exchanges, big banks and high-frequency traders. Virtu wasn’t mentioned in the book.

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Earnings  11/4/15: Virtu Financial beats by $0.06, beats on revs :
  • Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.40 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.06 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.34; revenues rose 24.6% year/year to $215.8 mln but may not comapare to the $127.61 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
  • Adjusted Net Trading Income increased 34.3% to $138.6 million for this quarter, compared to $103.2 million for the same period in 2014. Adjusted Net Income increased 56.8% to $76.2 million for this quarter, compared to $48.6 million for the same period in 2014.

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