Market data technology vendor ACTIV Financial says that several Designated Primary Market Makers (DPMs) on the CBOE Stock Exchange – a subsidiary of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) – have implemented its ActivFeed Direct platform. ACTIV delivers market data to various specialist applications for CBSX DPMs including Susquehanna Investment Group, LaBranche and Van der Moolen.
Launched on 5 March 2007, CBSX is a fully electronic, Reg NMS - compliant stock exchange offering strict price-time priority for all participants. Liquidity is, in part, provided by Designated Primary Market Makers and Remote Market Makers (RMMs) with quoting standards that aim to provide competitive and liquid markets.
ACTIV says that, by deploying its direct feed ticker plant infrastructure, DPMs on CBSX can use TotalView, OpenBook, and ArcaBook data feeds sourced by ACTIV and delivered via ActivFeed Direct, which is designed for organizations that require the lowest possible latency from their market data technology platform without the cost of maintaining feed handlers and aggregating supporting data.
The service provides CBSX traders with on-site feed handlers, a last value cache, and a complete data distribution platform with exchange entitlement control down to the desktop level. As a result, ActivFeed Direct drives the CBSX specialist applications and stand-alone servers managing the specialists' front end applications and order books through customer developed applications written to the ActivFeed API.
"CBSX is the newest U.S. stock exchange operating in a highly competitive arena where the quality and speed of market data can have a dramatic impact on trading performance," says Curt Schumacher, CBOE Vice President and CTO, Systems Operations. "We are pleased that ACTIV is able to provide competitive book depth via ActivFeed Direct to complement the CBSXtrading platform demonstrating its commitment to our marketplace."
"While industry regulations continue to drive market data volumes to unprecedented levels, exchanges will need access to low-latency market data to ensure compliance and drive profitable operations," adds Frank Piasecki, president of ACTIV Financial. "ACTIV solutions were designed to combat the challenges associated with these skyrocketing volumes while significantly reducing the systemic latency involved in the market data process. The capital markets systems are in the midst of some very exciting and very dramatic restructuring and we are thrilled that critical CBSX specialists have chosen ACTIV to help give them an information edge at competitive operating efficiencies."