Direct Access Trading (DAT)

Tit. Tat. A brokerage ties in to an ECN or other trading system...directly. With one click, the buyside investor can directly access whatever transaction set they want. For non-pros, this access might seem like it ought to be an obvious ubiquitous facility—but in practice, it's not. Trading historically happened via middle-men, brokers, commission-gatherers and others. The advent of direct access via technology is kind of a new thing .