The trading of new mini options contracts on US venue the International Securities Exchange (ISE) will commence in March, following recent regulatory go-ahead.
The new mini options will represent a deliverable of 10 shares of an underlying security compared to the standard contracts which represent 100 shares.
The new instruments will have the same expiration dates as their standard counterparts and strike prices will also align to those of the standard contracts, as will the quoted bids and offers. The fees associated with mini options will be announced at a later date after SEC approval.
“We are very pleased to announce a launch date of 18 March, 2013, to begin trading Mini Options,” said Gary Katz, president and CEO of ISE.
“This exciting new product will make trading options on popular, high-priced names like Google and Apple more affordable and more flexible for the retail segment of the market,” Katz said, adding the new product would likely find greatest appeal among retail investors.
ISE is part of the Deutsche Börse-owned Eurex Group, and combined with the Eurex Exchange in Europe reached daily trading volumes of more than 10 million contracts in 2011.
In October, the firm let multi-legged strategy orders on its options venue access liquidity on other alternative trading systems (ATSs), increasing execution quality and fill rates.
The stock component of multi-legged orders can now access liquidity at ATSs run by Deutsche Bank, Getco, Instinet and Knight, in addition to ISE’s existing routing capabilities to ConvergEx.