08.12.2013

Derivatives Exchanges Get Connected

08.12.2013
Terry Flanagan

ConvergEx Group’s options technology business has launched a new market data service that makes Complex Order Book data from all seven applicable options exchanges available through a single LiquidPoint API.

Subscribers are now able to consume this universal Complex Order Book (uCOB) feed at significantly less cost than acquiring market data subscriptions directly from each options exchange, thereby eliminating the burden and cost of acquiring, operating and maintaining each of those data feeds.

The uCOB data feed is in addition to the Level-1 equity and OPRA data that LiquidPoint already offers.

“While we have always offered uCOB through Blaze, our options execution management system, we understand that some clients also need a cost-effective and scalable solution to power their own proprietary applications,” said Anthony Saliba, chief executive officer of ConvergEx’s LiquidPoint.

Separately, AlgoSpan, a specialist market infrastructure provider, announced that as of August 1, 2013, customers of AlgoSpan are able to connect to The Order Machine (TOM) MTF over AlgoNet, its proprietary trading infrastructure.

“In a fragmented and competitive market, we are increasingly seeing trading firms and fund managers looking at alternative venues for liquidity and price improvement,” said Dr. Rami Habib, co-founder and director of AlgoSpan. TOM is gathering a lot of interest and we are very happy to be able to offer TOM as an alternative venue to our clients.”

The Order Machine (TOM) is a trading venue in The Netherlands offering equity and options trading and aiming at optimal competition between markets. To be able to guarantee best execution of client orders, TOM developed a search engine (‘TOM Smart Execution’) which compares prices between markets.

The order is executed at the trading venue showing the best available price at that moment. TOM has established a substantial market position in equity and options trading. The shareholders of TOM are ABN AMRO Bank, BinckBank, IMC, Nasdaq OMX and Optiver.

“TOM has now realized a significant market share of more than 25% in Dutch equity & index options and aims for a market share of 30% – 40% by year end,” said Willem Meijer, CEO of TOM. “We are therefore very pleased that more and more trading firms are connecting to our market via connectivity specialists such as AlgoSpan.”

With LiquidPoint’s new offering, clients are able to apply custom filters to identify trading opportunities, evaluate the marketability of their orders and provide more intelligent spread order routing capabilities. They are also able to better source liquidity and measure execution quality.

“We continue to make investments in our options technologies and expand our market data services. And as more exchanges offer COB data, our clients can rest assured that we will always keep them ahead of the curve as the marketplace evolves,” said Saliba.

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