BOX Gets Floored

The Boston Options Exchange is returning to the thrilling days of yesteryear will its planned launch of an open-outcry trading floor in Chicago, which the US Securities and Exchange Commissioned approved on August 2.

The options exchange operator expects to locate the new trading floor in space it has leased in the Chicago Board of Trade complex and open it for trading later this month.

BOX traders already have had a taste of what is in store for them in the new trading environment as BOX held a three-hour trading simulation on July 22.

“In the financial markets, isn’t it very cyclical?” said Tom Lehrkinder, a former trading pit clerk and senior analyst at Tabb Group, told the Financial Times. “We went from open-outcry, to everybody running to electronic and speed and now back to open-outcry, in this instance.”

Although electronic trading has made manual trading obsolete for all but the most illiquid trades, BOX officials state that by offering manual trading it would entice more traders and investors to participate more in the larger and more complex trades that happen on the exchange.

“We welcome this opportunity to bring additional competition to the options market, which we believe will spur further modernisation of open-outcry trading,” Lisa Fall, president of BOX, told the Financial Times.