Brian Hyndman was recently promoted to CEO of Blue Ocean Technologies, which has developed from a broker-dealer that matched buyers and sellers by phone during the overnight market hours to an ATS that allows Asian investors to trade U.S. stocks electronically during overnight market hours. Hyndman was recently interviewed by John Lothian News about Blue Ocean and his new role. 

Hyndman, a longtime Nasdaq executive, joined Blue Ocean to help raise capital to grow the company. He was eventually asked to join Blue Ocean and run it.  Before Hyndman joined, the company’s vision was to trade just ETFs; he extended it out to all NMS (National Market System) stocks. Today, Blue Ocean offers trading on more than 12,000 NMS stocks on its platform. 

JLN asked Hyndman who the customers were on the platform and he listed some of the market makers, U.S. brokers and foreign customers. 

We asked Hyndman what problem Blue Ocean is trying to solve, and he said it is providing electronic access to U.S. markets for Asian clients during the 8 PM to 4 AM timeframe. This allows Asian clients to trade U.S. NMS stocks during their daytime trading hours.

Hyndman addressed the question of liquidity during these trading hours and what products were trading. He also addressed what is the future for Blue Ocean, including moving into more time slots during the trading day and even becoming an exchange.

The advantage Blue Ocean has, Hyndman said, is that there are no other ATS firms out there competing against them. While there may be some phone brokers, there are no electronic platforms presently. 

He also talked about the technology that Blue Ocean uses for its platform.