Stock, ETF, and options order routing

When you buy or sell stocks, ETFs, and options with Sav, we generally send your orders to market makers that typically offer better prices than public exchanges.

To compete with exchanges, the market makers, with whom we have relationships, offer rebates to brokerages like ours. Rebates are one of a few other revenue streams that make it possible for us to provide a range of financial products and services at a low cost.

What's order routing?

Order routing is the process of sending your order to a venue (such as a market maker) for execution.

What's a market maker?

A market maker is a third-party institution that typically acts as a liquidity provider and executes orders.

Example

Let’s say you want to buy 1 share of YOWL. To do so, you’d place a buy order in the app. Our order routing system uses an algorithm that would send your order to a market maker, based on historical performance.

Which market makers get the orders?

We have relationships with several market makers, and our routing system is designed to automatically send orders to the market makers that are likely to give you the best execution, based on historical performance.

How’s execution quality maintained?

We pursue execution quality by striving for the best price that’s reasonably available for the orders you place.

The majority of our orders are filled at the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) or better, which means most customers are, at a minimum, receiving the best publicly available bid or ask price. We also perform regular, rigorous reviews of the execution quality our customers receive, looking at factors like execution price, speed, and price improvement.

Is order routing incentivized through specific market makers?

No. All market makers with whom we have relationships pay us rebates at the same rate, which means we aren’t incentivized to send orders to any one specific market maker.

How are rebates calculated?

We earn a percentage of the bid/ask spread, or the difference between the highest price to buy (bid) and the lowest price to sell (ask) the equity, at the time of execution. The spread is determined by the NBBO.

Are my orders shared with anyone other than the market maker?

No. We don't share your order information with anyone before we send orders to market makers.