Meet TradeStation-Backed Aries, A Data-Focused Broker Built By And For Traders

Aries, a retail-focused brokerage built by and for traders, is set to launch globally this summer.

In light of the company’s rapid growth in popularity, Benzinga chatted with founder and CEO Reda Falih regarding motivations, products and timelines.

About Aries: The company is unlike traditional, full-stack, turnkey brokerages.

Founded in 2019, Aries takes a shot at low-cost brokers Webull, Firstrade, and Trading212, among others, with its holistic platform for acting on actionable market intelligence.

That’s according to CEO Reda Falih who founded the brokerage on the heels of a successful trading career in over-the-counter and foreign markets.

“I made some cash and decided to invest it into education and data,” he said in a discussion on his evolution as a trader. After investing in data, Falih began also publishing insights. “If people could pay me for my insights, then eventually, I would be able to roll that money into higher-cost APIs.”

Later, Falih moved to create a consumable data application where users could track the flow of money by the biggest of market participants.

“There are struggles that exist with being an individual trader,” Falih said. “First, you’re not a novice — you understand what you’re doing — and then, on the upper end, there are people with billions of dollars that you cannot compete with.”

So, in working off the notion that one’s ability to make better trades comes with increased access to information, Aries integrated TradeStation services to become a data-focused investing and trading application.

“We’re not going to have outages and we’re going to be available internationally,” Falih said. “These old brokers have the game figured out … but they are dropping the ball.”

Core Focus: First and foremost, traditional brokers lack a direct line of communication with their user base, Falih believes.

“The cool thing about me being a trader, and then building an online community, afterward, is that it led me to appreciate the struggle,” he said. “That community gave me a direct connection into the kind of clientele that is building Robinhood into this massive empire.”

Common issues the retail community faces include a lack of communication over platform stability, Falih noted pointing to the GameStop Corp. GME debacle during which traders scrambled to save their positions after numerous brokers moved to limit trade.

“We’re living in a day and age where it’s so easy to open up a Clubhouse, or live stream, and just talk to your users,” the CEO noted. “I feel like users will stick with you as long as you prove to them that ‘Hey, we’re working on these things and your opinion matters.'”

Aries’ second focus is trade data and analytics.

Through aggregated headline and options information, Aries users can quickly decipher where money is flowing to. Additional offerings are ways to screen and chart top movers, as well as understand why stocks are moving in certain directions.

“For example — say a stock is up — you click the stock and right under the chart is exactly why it is moving in two or three sentences,” Falih explained. “Seeing the description of the money, visually, is something that doesn’t exist right now, and it’s something that, in my opinion, is going to change the game for retail.”

Innovation Outlook: Aries is concerned with merging premium UI, data, and market access.

“Anybody, nowadays, can buy an open API [as] there are tons of companies who give you the tools to go get licensed by the SEC and become a broker,” Falih said. “A huge selling point for us is the fact that we’re backed by 40 years of experience with TradeStation. The choice to go with TradeStation gives us access to their 24/7 customer service … and clearing.”

Additionally, going forward, Falih is looking to innovate further and develop a tighter connection with users.

“The biggest challenge, by far, is the amount of money it takes to break into this space,” the CEO noted in a discussion on his commitment to not sell out and become another payment-for-order flow system.

“Our focus, now, is making sure that user suggestions are taken care of, and bugs are all gone by the time we launch at the end of June, early July," he said.

(Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash)