System and method for basket trades and trade allocation

A system comprising:

• a client computer;
• a client database residing on the client computer;
• one or more computer processors operable to creating a basket of stocks and storing information characterizing the basket in the client database;
• one or more computer processors operable to slicing the basket into one or more wave orders and storing information characterizing the one or more wave orders in the client database;
• a backend server configured to receive, process, and forward a wave order from the client computer to an order management system and send status information to the client computer.

A computer-implemented method of client-directed program trade and allocation, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing a client computer having:
• a basket blotter manager for displaying information to, and receiving information from, a client;
• a basket store manager for managing the storage and retrieval of basket data from a client database;
• and a market data cache containing market data for a stock represented in the client database;
• creating a basket by adding a stock and a quantity to the basket, the basket blotter manager displaying market data for the stock retrieved from the market data cache;
• slicing the basket into a plurality of wave orders, each wave order identifying a stock in the basket and a wave quantity, wherein a sum of wave quantities over the plurality of wave orders equals the quantity of the stock in the basket;
• and
• sending the wave order to a brokerage for execution of the order.