Zions Direct, the broker-dealer subsidiary of Zions First National Bank, today announced that it has completed 750 online auctions for a variety of investments, including FDIC-insured certificates of deposit (CDs), corporate and municipal bonds, and preferred stock, since February 2007. Zions Direct’s unique platform allows individual investors to earn the same yield as institutional investors by avoiding the broker mark-up typically associated with retail investments.
With increased transparency luring individual investors, Zions Direct has enjoyed marked growth during the current economic environment. In fact, auction bidding accounts have grown 71 percent over the past 12 months. As a result of this growth, Zions Direct has increased the number of auctions held each week.
Zions Direct’s Dutch auction platform allows individuals and institutional investors to bid based on price or yield with all winning bidders receiving the market-clearing yield.
Auction participant Don Barnett, an active investor for more than fifty years, noted that the Zions Direct platform is appealing to him in the current investing market, both in terms of the variety of the offerings and in the mechanics of the auctions. “It fits very well with my investment program, in particular the short-term and tax-exempt issues are attractive in this economy” related Barnett. “And the auction platform allows me to test different yields, which helps me find the market value more easily when compared to the standard approaches to buying bonds.”
W. David Hemingway, chairman of Zions Direct and Executive Vice President of Zions Bancorporation remarked, “We are pleased to have completed our 750th auction. Zions Direct is the only brokerage firm that allows individuals to purchase bonds at the same price as institutional investors. Our customers are having a great experience participating in the auctions and are generally getting better returns than if they had purchased their bonds elsewhere.”
For more information about Zions Direct’s auction platform, visit auctions.zionsdirect.com.
