Description
Wedbush Securities Inc. is a privately held financial services and investment firm based in Los Angeles.[1] Gary Wedbush was appointed Co-President in May 2018.[2] The founder, Edward Wedbush, served as President for 63 years.
The firm was founded in 1955 by two high school friends, Edward W. Wedbush and Robert Werner, in Los Angeles, California. They each contributed $5,000 to capitalize their new company, Wedbush & Company.[3] The company was named after Wedbush because neither partner wanted a possible business failure named after them and Wedbush lost a coin toss.[4]
Wedbush opened its first office in 1957 located in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles. Three years later, Robert Werner decided to sell his interest in the firm to Ed Wedbush.[5] In 1971, the firm became members of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), and the National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC). In 1972, the firm began offering correspondent clearing services, providing trade execution for other brokerage firms.[6] The firm also added an Investment Banking group in 1975.
Wedbush expanded their trading and research capabilities and added several retail brokerage offices.[7] In 2000, the firm launched BrokerInsight, a workstation for order entry, portfolio valuation, and account management and in 2006, the firm became the #1 Liquidity Provider on NASDAQ. In late 2009, the firm changed its name to Wedbush Securities Inc. from Wedbush Morgan Securities Inc.
On June 13, 2011, Wedbush Securities' parent company, Wedbush Inc. announced the acquisition of Lime brokerage, a provider of low-latency, high-throughput trading technologies and high-volume agency brokerage.[8]
Barron's released the research results conducted by Zacks Investment Research for top stock picking firms. Zack's scored Wedbush as the number one stock picking firm for three of their four survey periods. Barron's announced that, "Los Angeles-based Wedbush Securities surfed to top honors by wide margins over the 6, 12 and 36 months ended Dec. 31, 2011." [9]
In 2014, Wedbush launched Wedbush Futures, and became the first U.S. financial institution to accept Bitcoin payments.[10] Wedbush Futures is one of the largest non-bank FCMs in the nation.[11] Wedbush also acquired First Capitol Ag, a full service brokerage specializing in agricultural hedging.[12]
In 2018, Wedbush acquired Kluis Commodity Advisors, which merged with First Capitol Ag[13], and sold Lime Brokerage.[14]
