Options Insider Radio Interviews: Recent Episodes
The Options Insider Radio Network
Options Insider Radio is the longest-running options podcast and the flagship program on the Options Insider Radio Network. Options Insider Radio features unique and compelling interviews with the thought leaders, icons, radicals, movers and shakers that shape the options market. Whether you are an options professional looking for insightul discussion about your industry, or an active retail trader who wants a glimpse behind the scenes, this is the program for you.
In this episode of OIC 2026 Conversations, Mark Longo sits down with Matt Fox, Co-Founder & CEO of SpotGamma, to discuss how options flow is increasingly driving today's markets.
The conversation explores the explosive growth of 0DTE options, the role of gamma in shaping intraday price action, and how traders can use support and resistance levels derived from options positioning to better understand market behavior.
Mark and Matt also dive into:
- The rise of 0DTE trading
- Positive vs. negative gamma environments
- Why options volume is growing faster than stock volume
- Gamma scalping and dealer positioning
- Intraday volatility versus end-of-day market stability
- The GameStop phenomenon and the origins of "Diamond Hands"
- Real-time options analytics and market structure
- The growing debate around 24/7 options trading
- Why Matt believes more options products are good—but nonstop markets may not be
Mark Longo sits down with two key executives from Options & Company—Jorge Lobo, Head of Treasury, and Ivyson Vilanova, CFO—for a fascinating look inside Brazil's evolving options marketplace.
Options & Company has built its business around improving liquidity, transparency, education, and access for Brazilian options traders. In this conversation, Jorge and Ivyson explain how the firm is helping address some of the biggest challenges facing Brazil's derivatives market while also pursuing ambitious plans for international expansion.
The discussion explores the current state of the Brazilian options ecosystem, the dominance of OTC structured products, the need for greater retail investor education, and how Options & Company is working to bring tighter spreads and more efficient markets to investors across Brazil.
Mark and his guests also discuss:
• The mission and growth of Options & Company • Why options education remains a major opportunity in Brazil • Liquidity challenges in Brazilian listed options • The role of OTC products in the retail marketplace • Brazil's most active sectors and underlying names, including Petrobras, Vale, Itaú, and Nubank • Why international investors are taking a fresh look at Brazil • Plans for Options & Company's expansion into the United States and other global markets • The potential impact of a second Brazilian derivatives exchange • How the Brazilian options market differs from the U.S. market • Why trends like 0DTE and 24-hour trading remain years away from widespread adoption in Brazil
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the financial industry—but could it eventually become your options broker?
In this exclusive interview from the Options Industry Conference 2026, Mark Longo sits down with Jim Swartwout, CEO of Prosperum Fintech Holdings, to discuss how AI is being integrated into brokerage services, options trading, customer support, education, and portfolio management.
Jim brings decades of experience from some of the biggest names in the brokerage industry, including Schwab, Fidelity, E*TRADE, TradeMonster, Scottrade, Ally, and Robinhood. He shares how Prosperum is developing AI-powered tools that can assist traders with options strategies, account monitoring, education, and eventually even trade execution.
They also discuss:
- The future of AI-powered brokerage services
- Building "Alex," Prosperum's AI trading assistant
- Can AI help traders manage complex options strategies?
- The role of education in successful options trading
- 24-hour options trading and market access
- 0DTE options and evolving market structure
- Prediction markets and their growing popularity
- Crypto, tokenization, and the future of financial markets
- What traders should expect from Prosperum in the months ahead
Mark Longo sits down with Fateen Sharaby, Head of Index Derivatives at Bloomberg, during the 2026 Options Industry Conference to discuss the future of index derivatives, competition in benchmark products, and the evolution of the options marketplace.
In this interview, they explore:
- Bloomberg's growing equity index business
- The launch of Bloomberg 500 and Bloomberg 100 futures with MIAX
- Why Bloomberg believes the index marketplace needs more competition
- The rise of 0DTE index options
- Institutional and retail adoption of index derivatives
- Volatility-based and options-based investment strategies
- The potential impact of major IPOs on benchmark construction
- 24-hour trading and the future of global market access
- The growing interest in perpetual futures and derivatives
- What traders should watch as Bloomberg expands its derivatives ecosystem
What are the biggest opportunities, risks, and regulatory battles shaping the options industry today?
At the Options Industry Conference 2026, Mark Longo sits down with Jim Toes, President & CEO of the Security Traders Association (STA), for a wide-ranging discussion on the hottest topics in the derivatives world.
From the explosive growth of single-name 0DTE options and FLEX products to prediction markets, event contracts, pattern day trader reforms, and the push toward 24-hour trading, Jim shares his perspective on where the industry is headed next.
They also discuss the changing regulatory environment under SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, the challenges of market structure reform, and why the future of options trading may look very different than it does today.
In This Episode: * The rollout of single-name 0DTE options * FLEX options and the rise of outcome ETFs * Why options volume continues to surge * Pattern Day Trader rule reform * Prediction markets vs. traditional derivatives * The push toward 24-hour options trading * SEC regulation and market structure * What concerns industry leaders most about the future
Guest: Greg Stevens, VP of Options Strategy - Fidelity
Topics:
- Should options trade 24/7?
- How are Fidelity's customers using the new 0DTE equity options? Any surprises?
- What is Fidelity doing in the prediction markets? Are they going to follow Robin Hood's lead and buy an exchange?
- How does Fidelity approach options education?
- What cool new bells and whistles is Fidelity rolling out for options traders?
- and much more...
Recorded live at the 2026 Options Industry Conference in Palm Beach, Mark Longo sits down with Steve Quirk, Chief Brokerage Officer at Robinhood, for an in-depth conversation on the future of options trading, retail investing, and market innovation.
Steve shares Robinhood's perspective on the rapid evolution of the options industry, including the push toward 24-hour trading, the continued rise of 0DTE options, prediction markets, event contracts, and the growing sophistication of today's retail options trader.
Topics include:
- Robinhood's vision for 24/5 and eventually 24/7 options trading
- The future of overnight liquidity and market structure
- The explosive growth of retail options volume
- 0DTE options and single-name daily expirations
- Robinhood's expanding options education and trading tools
- Mobile-first investing and the evolution of options traders
- Prediction markets, event contracts, and binary-style products
- The future of event-based trading and portfolio hedging
- Robinhood's options platform roadmap and customer trends
- What Steve believes the options industry will look like over the next year
On this episode we are joined in the Hot Seat by:
- Tom Sosnoff: Co-Founder of Thinkorswim & Tastytrade and now Co-Founder of LossDog
Tom talks about his new venture Lossdog and also tackles your questions about
- His thoughts on the current market rally
- His favorite options strat
- Crypto, MSTR and DAT risk
- The problems with options brokerage firms
- Is he trading 100 short strangles a day?
- and much more.
On this episode we are joined by:
- JAMES KOSTULIAS, HEAD OF TRADING SERVICES AT CHARLES SCHWAB
James tackles your questions about:
- The new 0dte equity options - are they a hit? What are people trading in them?
- Should options trade 24/7?
- Will Schwab dive into the predictions markets?
- What should every new options traders master before making their first trade?
- The biggest mistake of most options traders?
- Cool new upgrades for Schwab options traders?
- Plus crypto, retail options volume, difference between Schwab and TOS options traders and much more...
- Host: Mark Longo, The Options Insider Media Group
- Guest: Mead Welles, co-founder and chairman of A Leg to Stand On (ALTSO)
A Leg to Stand On (ALTSO) is a nonprofit organization that provides free corrective surgery, prosthetics, and mobility devices to children in developing countries. Mark and Mead discuss the upcoming Rocktoberfest events in New York and Chicago, where finance professionals perform as rock bands to raise funds and awareness for ALTSO. They highlight the impact of the organization, which has helped over 25,000 children with limb disabilities. The conversation also touches on the innovative prosthetic limb nicknamed 'the Joshi,' cost-effective solutions for mobility aids, and ways listeners can contribute to the cause.
On this episode, Mark is joined by
- Abhishek Fatehpuria, VP of Product Management - Robinhood
They discuss Robinhood's new offerings for active options traders and explore whether the firm is ready to take on high-end options clients?
On this episode we are joined in the Southern Studio during the Options Industry Conference by:
- Jim Toes, President, Securities Traders Association
Jim and Mark discuss:
- The nuances involved in deslisting foreign companies in the name of national security.
- His thoughts on the 0DTE Mag 7 proposal - does it make sense for the options markets?
- Do we have to worry about transaction taxes making a comeback?
- What's on the docket for the STA National Convention in D.C.?
- and much more...
On this episode, we are joined in the Southern Studio during the Options Conference by:
- Dave Barrett, Head of Options Strategy at Nasdaq
Dave and Mark discuss:
- Nasdaq's potentially game-changing proposal for 0DTE Tesla, Nvidia and more. Will we finally be able to trade 0DTE options on single-name equities? Let's find out...
Plus they discuss:
- the state of options education
- FLEX madness
- The wild response to IBIT options
- and much more..
During the Options Industry Conference, we were joined by Matt Fox, CEO, SpotGamma.
Mark and Matt discuss:
- WTH is SpotGamma?
- Are 0DTE options just gamma bombs waiting to go off?
- How should gamma inform your trading?
- Should we expand 0DTE to equity options?
- and much more...
Join us as we explore the mysteries and nuances that emerge when trying to backtest 0DTE options strategies with Troy McNeil, Co-Founder of Option Omega.
We are joined in the Southern Studio by:
- Kevin “Lex” Luthringshausen, SVP Strategic Partnerships, Tradier
- Peter Laptewicz, President of Brokerage, Tradier
Mark, Lex and Peter discuss:
- How the recent volatility may be spooking some of tradiers more aggressive clients.
- The evolving 0DTE landscape and what the next products should be.
- Should options go 24/5 or even 24/7?
- What is Tradier doing to raise the bar for options education?
- and much more...
We are joined in the Southern Studio at OIC 2025 by:
- Steve Quirk, Chief Brokerage Officer at Robinhood.
Mark and Steve discuss:
- How Robinhood's clientele is handling these extremely volatile markets.
- Should EVERTHING trade 24/7?
- What is the best way to expand 0DTE into the equity options realm?
- How do you get the tiktok generation to engage with detailed options education?
- and much more...
Next up in the Southern Studio:
- Mathieu Boivin-Carrier, Director, All Options USA
We discuss:
- Providing liquidity in less-liquid options
- The upcoming Nasdaq pilot for 0DTE single-name equity options
- Why would you start a prop shop in Austin?
- The problems with allocations for newer market makers.
- Should options trade 24 hours a day?
- and much more...
Couldn't make it to OIC this year? We've got you covered with exclusive panel content and interviews from the show. Next up -
- Sam Nofzinger, GM of Brokerage, Public
Sam discusses:
- The status of Public's first foray into the options market?
- The new proposal for 0DTE options in the Mag 7 stocks.
- Should options trade 24 hours a day?
- the state of options education?
- and much more...
Couldn't make it to OIC this year? We've got you covered with exclusive panel content and interviews from the show. First up -
- JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG Group North American and President of Tastylive.
JJ discusses:
- The new proposal for 0DTE options in the Mag 7 stocks.
- Should options trade 24 hours a day?
- the state of options education?
- and much more...
On this episode Mark is joined in the Southern Studio by:
- John Palmer, Head of Options, IEX
- Ivan Brown, Chief Operating Officer of Optios, IEX
They discuss
- Do we really need a 19th options exchange?
- What can IEX bring to the table that is different from every other options exchange?
- How can you protect market makers from dangerous errors and stale quotes?
- Is the new Nasdaq Mag 7 plus pilot for 0DTE equity options the right path forward?
- and much more...
We are joined in the Southern Studio by:
- Thomas Bonville, Managing Director, Head of Derivative Sales, Clear Street
We discuss:
- 24-hour options trading
- The potential for 0DTE single-name equity options
- and much more...
Mark is joined by:
- Mead Welles, Founder, A Leg To Stand On
Mark and Mead discuss
- Raising money for kids with missing limbs around the world
- Their big upcoming Rocktoberfest events in New York and Chicago
On this episode, Mark is joined in the Southern Studio at the STA National Conference by:
- Sean Feeney, Head of U.S. Options at Nasdaq
Mark and Sean discuss:
- IEX getting into the options game.
- How many exchanges are too many?
- The resilience of the options market after 8/5
- The "flexiness" of the options market
- Should we all be celebrating "Metals Monday?"
- The prospects for bitcoin options
- and much more...
On this episode, Mark is joined in the Southern Studio at STA 2024 by:
- Patrick Travers, CEO - Clear Street Derivatives
- John DiBacco, Global Head of Derivatives - Clear Street
They discuss:
- What the heck is Clear Street?
- Do we need another options exchange?
- The impact of 0DTE on the institutional options market
- The resilience of the options market after the August selloff.
- Will we see options on the bitcoin etfs in our lifetime (spoiler alert...Yes!)
- What does Clear Street have to offer the retail market?
- and much more...
On this episode we are joined in the Souther Studio by:
- JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG Group North America & President of Tastytrade
JJ and Mark discuss:
- The impact of the Fed's "surprise" half point rate cut. Too little, too late or just right?
- Should you really care that IEX is launching a new options exchange?
- Are we reaching a dangerous tipping point in the options exchange world?
- Did the recent market meltdown signal that we're past the dangerous phase of the 0DTE era?
- and much more...
On this episode Mark is joined in the Hot Seat by:
- Ben Colabella and Dillon Del Rosso, Co-Founders at PeakBot
They discuss:
- WTH is PeakBot?
- How much does it cost?
- What types of options algorithms can you trade on the platform?
- How do they construct their algorithms?
- Can you tweak them to your preferred trading style?
- Who controls your accounts?
- How can they maintain the quality of your executions as their algos grow in popularity?
- What types of security is in place to protect your money?
- And much more
On this episode, Mark is joined by James Kostulias, Managing Director and Head of Trading Services at Charles Schwab.
They discuss
- The benefits and risks of 0DTE options
- The explosive growth of retail options trading
- Should the options market go 24-5 or even 24-7
- What's going on with the options on the Bitcoin ETFs
- Why did it take so long to integrate all of the Schwab's options platforms
- And much more
On this episode we are joined by:
- Brian Hyndman, CEO of Blue Ocean Technologies
Mark and Brian discuss the rise of 24-hour trading
- Should it happen?
- It it just inevitable?
- How would it impact the options market?
- How does technology impact the adoption of 24-hour trading?
- and much more...
On this episode Mark is joined in the Southern Studio by:
- Sean Feeney, Head of Options - Nasdaq
Mark and Sean discuss the hot topics in the options market right now including:
- Zero Day Options - are they a bane or a boon and when will we see more of them listed?
- Bitcoin Options - what the heck is going on there?
- Flex Options - why are they suddenly the hottest thing in the options market?
- Options Volume - why did it dip recently and can it possibly persist at these levels?
- and much more...
On this episode we are joined by:
- Greg Stevens - Head of Options Experience Initiative - Fidelity
- Colin Songer - Director of Options - Fidelity
Greg and Colin discuss:
- 0DTE options madness
- Can the volume explosion continue?
- When will we see 0DTE Tesla options?
- When will we see bitcoin ETF options?
- Should the options market trade 24/7
- and much more...
On this episode Mark is joined by:
- Patrick Zielinski, CEO - Box Options Market
Mark and Patrick discuss
- Is it possible that BOX is now 20 years old?
- Why are FLEX options so hot right now?
- When will we see 0DTE options on Tesla and Nvidia?
- When will we see options on the bitcoin ETFs?
- Are options trading floors still viable in 2024?
- Should the options market transition into 24-hour trading?
- Can the options volume wave continue?
- And much more...
On this episode we are joined by:
- Sam Nofzinger, GM of Brokerage and Crypto at Public
Sam and Mark discuss:
- Why Public decided to enter the options market?
- How does their options rebate work? How much can you actually make? Does it vary by exchange and by the type of trade?
- What types of options strategies can you trade at Public right now?
- What types of options tools does Public offer for options traders?
- Does Public provide options education and have educators on staff to handle your questions?
- What types of crypto trades can you make on public right now?
- Plus 0DTE options, 24-Hour trading, Bitcoin options and much more...
On this episode, Mark is joined in the Southern Studio at OIC 2024 by:
- Jim Toes, President - STA
- Jim Hyde, Chairman - STA & Head of Partnerships and Business Development at NYSE
Mark and Jim Squared discuss
- What the future holdes for 0DTE options
- What the future holds for options on the bitcoin ETFs
- Should the stock market move toward 24-7 trading and what does that mean for the options market
- Why are they changing up their annual market structure conference?
- and much more...
On this episode Mark is joined by:
- Meaghan Dugan, Head of Options - NYSE
Mark and Meaghan discuss
- When will we see 0DTE Tesla and Nvidia options?
- What is causing the delay in listing those products?
- Why did NYSE kick off another 24-hour trading arms race?
- Will we ever see options on the bitcoin ETFs?
- Why is everyone so excited about FLEX options?
- and much more...
Our OIC 2024 coverage continues as we are joined in the Southern Studio by:
- JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG Group North America
Mark and JJ discuss:
- When will we see 0DTE options listed in popular stocks like Tesla and Nvidia?
- When will we see options listed on the new Bitcoin ETFs?
- What does the volume downturn in March mean for the options market going forward?
- Should the stock market move towards 24-hour trading?
- If stock trading is expanded, what impact will that have on the options market?
- and much more...
Mark sits down with The Options Guy -aka Brian Overby - to discuss:
- Skip strike butterfly adjustments
- butterflies vs. fig leaves
- 0DTE options
- 24hr stock and option trading
- Options on the bitcoin ETFs
- and much more...
Guest: Steve Quirk, Chief Brokerage Officer, Robinhood.
Discussion Topics:
- Does Robinhood have options educators on staff or do they rely solely on TikTok videos?
- Should stocks and options trade 24 hours a day?
- What format should after-hours options trading take?
- Will we see 0dte Tesla and Apple options anytime soon?
- Can options volume continue growing at the current record pace?
- and much more
On this episode Mark sits down with Cathy Clay, Head of Global Derivatives at CBOE Global Markets.
Mark and Cathy talk aboutWhat's next for 0 DTE options?
- Will we ever be able to trade 1-day VIX?
- Do we need to launch cash-settled equity options before we launch Tesla and Nvidia 0DTE options
- What's the holdup with options on the bitcoin ETFs?
- Are tradable dispersion products coming soon?
- Is CBOE bringing variance back to the market?
- And much more...
On this episode we are joined by:
- Jim Toes, President & CEO - Securities Traders Association.
Jim and Mark discuss:
- The explosion of interest in zero-day options trading
- The current regulatory environment for stocks, options and crypto
- What to look forward to from STA's upcoming events
- and much more...
On this episode we are joined by:
- Greg Stevens, VP of Options Experience at Fidelity
- Colin Songer, Director of Options Experience at Fidelity
Greg and Colin discuss
- The 0 DTE explosion at Fidelity.
- Are 0 DTE contracts good or bad for the options market?
- Will we see single-name 0 DTE contracts sometime soon?
- How the options experience is evolving at Fidelity.
- and much more...
Mark is joined by Mead Welles, Founder & Chairman - A Leg to Stand On (ALTSO) and Founder & CEO - Octagon Asset Management. Mark and Mead discuss what ALTSO is, stories of children who have needed help and how the charity provides these services. Additionally, they discuss ALTSO's annual Rocktoberfest in October.
Learn more about ALTSO and attend Rocktoberfest live via https://www.altso.org/
On this episode, we are joined by:
- John Davidson, CEO - The Options Clearing Corporation
Mark and John discuss:
- Looking back on the meme stock palooza?
- Are we pricing calls wrong?
- Will we ever see extended hours trading in options?
- Why does open interest only update once a day?
- What is the OCC Ovation technology overhaul?
- Can the Options volume party continue in 2022?
- Will we see daily expirations in single-name options in the near future?
- and much more...
On this episode we get a quick mid-year update on the options market from:
- Henry Schwartz, Head of Market Intelligence for the Data and Access Group, CBOE Global Markets - aka The Flowmaster
and
- Saad Hussain, CEO of Vesica Technologies
On this episode we take a deep dive into an upcoming product that has caught the attention of many of our listeners. It's time to talk about Nanos!
- What are they?
- Why is CBOE bringing these to market now?
- Do we really need an options contract with no multiplier?
- How does CBOE plan to avoid a repeat of the mini options fiasco with Nanos?
- Plus we also discuss the retail options tsunami, CBOE's return to the crypto market, the launch of $BITO options and much more,,.
- Guest: Mead Welles, Co-Founder, Chairman & Treasurer - A Leg to Stand On
Mark and Mead discuss:
- What is ALTSO?
- How do you raise funds for a financial-oriented charity during a pandemic?
- How do you continue your mission to help kids in the developing world during a pandemic?
- Crypto donations, the ALTSO app, and the album from Rocktoberfest.
- And much more...
Learn more about ALTSO and attend Rocktoberfest live via https://www.altso.org/
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Karina Mattis, Head of Wealth Management's Advisory Managed Options Strategies, UBS
Mark and Karina discuss:
- The Managed Options Strategies Program at UBS
- The client experience during the pandemic
- The types of client demand being seen for options this year
- The new and exciting focus areas for next few years at UBS
- And much more...
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Garrett DeSimone, Head of Quantitative Research, OptionMetrics
Mark and Garrett discuss:
- What is OptionMetrics
- What a banner year it has been for volatility
- Thoughts on GameStop and retail trading
- How do you create a new, and potentially more accurate, put/call ratio for the post-Gamestop era?
- And much more...
- Guest: DAVID CROSS, Managing Director- Head of Sales & Business Development at Dash Financial Technologies
Mark and David discuss:
- The opportunities and challenges posed by pandemic volatility.
- How the meme stock explosion has changed the way we monitor and manage risk.
- Can the options volume party continue throughout 2021?
- Should we make it more difficult for retail customers to trade options?
- What does Dash have planned for the crypto markets?
- and much more...
OIRN INTERVIEWS: Exploring the Mysteries of Options Market Making
Today's guest is Rory O'Kane, Managing Director - Simplex Trading
Mark and Rory discuss:
- What is Simplex Trading?
- How difficult was it to be an options market maker during the height of the pandemic and meme stock madness?
- Why did Simplex decide to get into options market making business when so many firms are getting out?
- Are OTM calls mispriced?
- Do we need to put more obstacles in the way of retail traders?
- Can the 2021 options volume party continue?
- And more...
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Richard Ho, Head of Retail Equity Derivatives, The Montreal Exchange
Mark and Richard discuss:
- The Canadian options market
- The retail options explosion during the pandemic in Canada
- The world's first bitcoin ETF
- Will we soon see 24 hours derivatives trading in Canada
- The Options Industry Conference
- Why you can't sell a put in a Canadian RRSP account
- And much more...
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Greg Stevens, VP - Options Experience, Fidelity
Mark and Greg discuss:
- What is new with Fidelity Options
- The retail options explosion during the pandemic
- The Options Industry Conference
- How they have redesigned their offerings to cater to options traders
- Why you can't trade options in accounts
- And much more...
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Doug Engmann, Chairman of the Board and Principal Executive Officer, SageTrader
Mark and Doug discuss:
- Doug's background in the options industry
- What is SageTrader
- Options trading during the pandemic and the retail trading explosion
- Have brokers like Robinhood made it too easy to trade options
- Will options volume stay at these levels
- Is it time to bring back mini options
- And much more...
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Jim Nevotti, President, Sterling Trading Tech
- Ravi Jain, Director of Risk & Derivatives, Sterling Trading Tech
Mark, Jim and Ravi discuss:
- What is Sterling Trading Tech
- What a banner year it has been for risk and volatility
- Their real-time risk margin engine
- The Sterling crypto widget
- And much more...
On this episode Mark is joined by:
- Wayne Ferbert, Managing Director, Alpha DNA
Mark and Wayne discuss:
- What is Alpha DNA Investment Management
- Their new equity sentiment EFT with AdvisorShares (Ticker SENT)
- How is the hedge equity component constructed
- Why more ETFs and fund managers don't offer hedging and options exposure
- Thoughts on the current options brokerage space
- And much more...
On this episode of Options Insider Radio we are joined by:
- Michael Brodsky, CEO, Options Solutions
- Steven Sears, President and COO, Options Solutions
Mark, Mike and Steve discuss:
- What is Options Solutions?
- Who are the target clients?
- How does Options Solutions construct its covered call portfolios?
- How does Options Solutions stand apart in the crowded covered call marketplace?
- What do you think that we can do to improve the understanding and use of options in the advisor and fund community?
- And much more...
ON THIS EPISODE, MARK IS JOINED BY PAUL ROWADY, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, ALPHACUTION RESEARCH CONSERVATORY.
MARK AND PAUL DISCUSS:
- WHAT IS ALPHACUTION?
- HOW THE ROBIN HOOD SAGA BROUGHT PFOF BACK INTO THE LIMELIGHT?
- IS PFOF GOOD OR BAD FOR THE OPTIONS MARKET?
- THE SURPRISE OPTIONS MARKET RESILIENCY DURING 2O20
- WHAT REALLY BROUGHT ABOUT THE IMPLOSION OF RONIN CAPITAL?
- WHAT CAN WE DO TO BRING MORE MARKET MAKERS INTO THE OPTIONS MARKET?
- AND MUCH MORE...
On this episode Mark is joined by:
- Ryan Belanger-Saleh, Co-CEO, Gatsby
Mark and Ryan discuss:
- What the heck is Gatsby?
- Launching a new brokerage firm during the busiest year in options history.
- Have we made options trading too easy?
- Does Gatbsy plan to stop taking PFOF?
- Are we on the cusp of a mini/micro/fractional options revolution?
- And much more...
Our guest for this episode is John Davidson, CEO of the Options Clearing Corporation. Mark and John discuss:
- Stock loans and the latest on GameStop
- The historic options volume records in 2020
- The completely electronic markets in March 2020
- Thoughts on the retail revolution that upended the options markets in 2020
- Clearing crypto products
- Next big initiatives
- And much more…
On this episode we are joined by:
- Jim Toes, CEO & President, Securities Traders Association
Mark and Jim discuss:
- How did short sellers build up over 100% short interest in Gamestop?
- Was the options market maker exemption to blame for the massive short interest in Gamestop?
- Do we need new stock loan regulations to prevent this in the future?
- Why did so many brokers bungle the messaging around Gamestop-related trading adjustments?
- How is the retail revolution reshaping the financial markets?
- How does STA view the exploding crypto market?
- and much more...
ON THIS EPISODE OF OPTIONS INSIDER RADIO WE ARE JOINED BY GREG FERRARI, VICE PRESIDENT, HEAD OF US OPTIONS AT NASDAQ.
WE DISCUSS:
- HOW THE YEAR WAS FOR NASDAQ OPTIONS
- IF THE RETAIL OPTIONS EXPLOSION IN 2020 SURPRISED HIM
- WHAT'S NEW AT NASDAQ OPTIONS
- WHY TRADERS SHOULD ENTER THE VOLATILITY MARKET NOW
- WHAT'S GOING ON AT THE PHILLY FLOOR
- AND MUCH MORE...
ON THIS EPISODE OF OPTIONS INSIDER RADIO WE ARE JOINED BY PAUL JIGANTI, MANAGING DIRECTOR AT IMC
WE DISCUSS:
- PAUL’S THOUGHTS ON THE INSANE YEAR THAT WAS 2020
- WHETHER OR NOT IT IS TOO EASY TO TRADE OPTIONS NOW
- TAKEAWAYS FROM THE RETAIL OPTIONS PANEL AT STA MID WINTER MEETING THIS YEAR
- WILL THESE NEW CUSTOMERS STAY OR BLOW OUT
- THOUGHTS ON CRYPTO OPTIONS FOR RETAIL TRADERS
- AND MUCH MORE...
ON THIS EPISODE OF OPTIONS INSIDER RADIO WE ARE JOINED BY MARK PHILLIPS, CEO OF HARVESTED FINANCIAL
WE DISCUSS:
- HOW YOU GO FROM A VIX MARKET MAKER TO LAUNCHING AN OPTIONS FOCUSED RIA
- WHAT IS HARVESTED FINANCIAL
- ZERO COST COLLARS, STRATEGIC OVERLAYS AND"POOR MAN'S COVERED CALLS”
- AND MUCH MORE...
On this episode of Options Insider Radio we are joined by:
-
Bob Krause - CEO, Demand Derivatives
-
Don Schlesinger - President - Demand Derivatives
We discuss:
-
Is it possible to crowdfund a new exchange?
-
Is there a place for a new futures exchange in the US?
-
What is Real Vol?
-
How to make the switch from trading implied volatility to trading actual realized volatility
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Is there a way to cut the costs associated with futures trading
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And much more...
On this episode of Options Insider Radio we are joined by:
- Barry Martin - Portfolio Manager at Shelton Capital
Mark and Barry discuss:
- How does Shelton Capital approach the traditional covered call?
- What is their optimal structure for a covered call portfolio?
- Should a covered call approach differ for ETFs vs equities
- Are clients and advisors demanding covered calls right now?
- Was 2020 a favorable year for covered call traders? What is their outlook for 2021?
- What is their optimal collar structure?
- And much more...
On this episode of Options Insider Radio we are joined by:
- CC Lagator - Cofounder of Options AI
Mark and CC discuss:
- What is Options AI?
- Why launch yet another options brokerage?
- What sets Options AI apart from every other options-oriented brokerage?
- Why put AI in the name?
- Where does the AI come to play?
- And much more...
On this episode of Options Insider Radio we are pleased to be joined once again by Jack Schwager, co-founder of www.FundSeeder.com and the creator of the seminal Market Wizards book series. Mark and Jack discuss:
- How do you find unknown market wizards?
- Jack's views on the current Robin Hood retail trading explosion, crypto and the state of funding for new traders
- and much more...
On this episode of Options Insider Radio we are joined by:
- Todd Rich - Head of Education, Nadex
Mark and Todd discuss:
- The hot products in the binary options space right now
- What were people trading around the election?
- What are knockout options?
- Has the Robin Hood volume explosion spilled over to Nadex?
- Will we ever see an event contract around sports or politics?
- And much more...
- Guest: Tom Gallagher, Chairman & CEO - Miami International Holdings.
Mark and Tom discuss:
- How did MIAX pivot from a stock exchange aimed at Latin America to launching a tech-oriented options exchange?
- How did MIAX carve out a sizable portion of the U.S. options market?
- Why did MIH decide to enter the crowded equities market in the midst of a pandemic?
- Why did MIH break into the futures market by acquiring the Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX)?
- Why did MIH expand into international equities by acquiring the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX)?
- What does MIH have planned for the crypto and digital asset markets?
- and much more...
- GUEST: RUSSELL RHOADS, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, EQ DERIVATIVES AND PROFESSOR AT LOYOLA UNIVERSITY
MARK AND RUSSELL DISCUSS:
- HIS NEW BOOK THE VIX TRADERS HANDBOOK
- WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THE VOLATILITY SURFACE LEADING INTO THE ELECTION
- A STRATEGY SHORTING BOTH LEVERED LONG AND SHORT ETFS TO CAPTURE THE UNDERPERFORMANCE OF EACH WHEN HELD LONG-TERM
- WHAT DRIVES INTRADAY PRICES IN VIX ETFS
- AND MUCH MORE...
- GUEST: Tommy Martin, Managing Director, Head of Sales Strategy & Operations - DASH Financial Technologies
Mark and Tommy discuss:
- How the pandemic has impacted Dash Financial.
- How customers are navigating the explosion of volume and volatility in 2020.
- Was 2020 the best year in history to launch an options ATS? (and Is Dash now the Peleton of the options market as a result?)
- How the retail explosion has impacted the options market.
- The upcoming "Listed Options Turn Up The Volume" panel at the annual STA Market Structure Conference.
- And much more...
OIRN Interviews: Finding The Signal In Corporate Event Noise
- Guest: Barry Star, CEO - Wall Street Horizon
Mark and Barry discuss:
- What is Wall Street Horizon?
- How the pandemic is impacting the corporate events calendar.
- How do you find meaningful signals amidst the noise of corporate data?
- How do options traders use corporate event data in their trading?
- Can you truly get the full enchilada?
- and much more...
OIR interviews: Are You Ready For A Bullish Risk Reversal ETF?
- Guest: Mike Loukas, CEO - TrueMark Investments.
Mark and Mike discuss:
- What are TrueShares structured outcome ETFs?
- How are these ETFs constructed?
- Why did TrueMark opt for a bullish risk reversal strategy as opposed to the more common collar strategy?
- Will there be any adjustments made to the options positions due to market fluctuations?
- How has the market responded to these new options-oriented ETFs?
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: How is the Pandemic Impacting the Securities Industry?
- Guest: Jim Toes, President & CEO - Securities Traders Association (STA)
Mark and Jim discuss:
- How the pandemic is impacting the securities industry.
- The challenges, and benefits, of moving the annual STA market structure conference to a virtual format.
- Helping industry members who have lost jobs during the pandemic.
- The unique challenges posed by the proposed transaction tax in New Jersey.
- and much more...
OIR Interviews: Helping Cool Kids During a Pandemic with ALTSO
- Guest: Mead Welles, Co-Founder, Chairman & Treasurer - A Leg to Stand On
Mark and Mead discuss:
- What is ALTSO?
- How do you raise funds for a financial-oriented charity during a pandemic?
- How do you continue your mission to help kids in the developing world during a pandemic?
- The crazy developments on the commodity front during the pandemic.
- And much more...
Learn more about ALTSO and attend Rocktoberfest live via https://www.altso.org/
OIR Interviews: Bringing Hedging to the Masses With Grey Swan Digital
- Guest: Peter Harrigan, CEO & Co-Founder - Grey Swan Digital
Mark and Peter discuss:
- The joys of hedging gamma at 5am.
- What the heck is price sharing?
- How do you build a derivatives-oriented hedging platform during a pandemic?
- The impact of negative crude oil and high volatility on the demand for risk hedging.
- Is crypto poised to be the next big addition to the price sharing platform?
- and much more...
OIR Interviews: The Return of the Mini VIX with Cboe
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Arianne Criqui, SVP Head of Derivatives and Global Client Services, Cboe
Mark and Arianne discuss:
- The rise of retail options traders during the pandemic
- What an options trading floor looks like in the middle of a pandemic
- The new mini-VIX futures at Cboe
- Why VIX futures volume has languished during a very volatile period for the markets
- If VIX futures need a return of XIV or launch of SVIX to get volume back to 2018 levels
- How Cboe views the dramatic election "bump" in VIX futures
- The new CMEGroup volatility product
- And much more.
OIR Interviews: Talking Pandemics, FANG Plus and More with NYSE
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Ivan Brown, Head of Options - NYSE
Mark and Ivan discuss:
- How the pandemic has impacted NYSE's options markets.
- Handling the transition to 100% electronic markets in the midst of unprecedented global turmoil.
- The surprising renaissance of retail options traders in the midst of the pandemic.
- What the heck are Fang Plus options?
- Does NYSE plan to launch a VIX competitor?
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: Buying Puts When The House Is On Fire
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Gary Franklin, VP of Retail Options Trading and Strategies at Raymond James
Mark and Gary discuss:
- How the pandemic has impacted options clients at Raymond James.
- Which options strategies are dominating the tape right now at Raymond James?
- Has the pandemic altered the way advisors and clients use options?
- Outlook on current market valuation and volatility levels.
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: Going Bite-Size With the Small Exchange
On this episode, Mark is joined by:
- Donnie Roberts, CEO - The Small Exchange
Mark and Donnie discuss:
- What the heck is the Small Exchange?
- Why small futures?
- How do you convince retail to migrate from ETFs back into futures?
- What are the challenges of launching a new exchange during a global pandemic.
- Are there lessons to be learned from the failure of other stock futures ventures?
- And much more?
OIR Interviews: Getting Geeky with Options Education
MARK IS JOINED ON THIS EPISODE BY FELIX FREY, FOUNDER AND CREATOR OF OPTIONSGEEK. MARK AND FELIX DISCUSS:
- WHAT IS OPTIONSGEEK?
- WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO FIND OPTIONS EDUCATION ABOUT BUYING OPTIONS?
- ARE THE GREEKS WORTHLESS?
- HOW DO YOU AVOID BEING "DECAYED TO DEATH" WHEN TRADING LONG OPTIONS?
- AND MUCH MORE...
OIR Interviews: Exploring Black Swans and Strike Zones with ARGI
MARK IS JOINED ON THIS EPISODE BY DAN CUPKOVIC, DIRECTOR OF INVESTMENTS AT ARGI. MARK AND DAN DISCUSS:
- WHAT IS ARGI?
- HOW THEIR OPTIONS ORIENTED PRODUCTS - STRIKE ZONE AND BLACK SWAN. -ARE STRUCTURED?
- HOW OVERALL DEMAND HAS BEEN FOR THEIR OPTIONS ORIENTED PRODUCTS VS. THE TRADITIONAL FUNDS?
- WHAT CAN LISTENERS LOOK FORWARD TO FROM ARGI IN THE NEAR FUTURE?
- AND MUCH MORE...
Respective services provided by ARGI Investment Services, LLC, a Registered Investment Adviser, ARGI CPAs & Advisors, PLLC, SCA CPAs & Advisors, PLLC, ARGI Business Services, LLC, and Advisor Insurance Solutions. All are affiliates of ARGI Financial Group.
ARGI was established in 1995, under the name R.D.B, Inc., a franchise of American Express Financial Advisors. In 2001, R.D.B., Inc., was renamed Advisor’s Resource Group, Inc. In 2003, ARGI separated from American Express, teamed up with independent broker dealer National Planning Corporation, began using the name ARGI Financial Group, which became the official name in November, 2005. In January 2010, ARGI Investment Services LLC officially became a SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Amplify Investments LLC is the Investment Adviser to the Amplify BlackSwan Growth & Treasury Core ETF, and ARGI Investment Services, LLC serves as the Investment Sub-Adviser.
OIR Interviews: Going Binary With Nadex
Mark is joined on this episode by Todd Rich, Head of Education at Nadex. Mark and Todd discuss:
- What can you trade on the Nadex platform?
- How did the recent market volatility impact Nadex?
- How did negative crude oil impact Nadex's binary options?
- What are the hot products on Nadex right now?
- What can listeners look forward to from Nadex in the near future?
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: The Rise of Demand Derivatives
GUESTS
- BOB KRAUSE - CEO, DEMAND DERIVATIVES
- DON SCHLESINGER - PRESIDENT, DEMAND DERIVATIVES
TOPICS DISCUSSED:
- WHAT IS DEMAND DERIVATIVES?
- WAS THIS BORN OUT OF THE FRUSTRATION OF TRYING TO LAUNCH A NEW VOLATILITY PRODUCT?
- THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT VOLATILITY. THIS ENCOMPASSES A NEW EXCHANGE, CLEARING HOUSE AND MORE?
- WHY FOCUS ON SHORT DURATION?
- HOW CAN LISTENERS PARTICIPATE IN THE LAUNCH?
- AND MUCH MORE...
- FIND OUT MORE AT DEMANDDERIVATIVES.COM
OIR interviews: Exploring The Opaque World of Hard Assets
On this episode, Mark is joined by John Vardis - AKA "The Diamond Analyst." Mark and John discuss:
- Are customers flocking to "hard assets" like diamonds in these troubled times?
- Do diamond prices correlate well with gold prices?
- Are there tradeable futures, ETPs or even structured products linked to diamonds?
- Is this opaque marketplace still dominated by monopolistic players like De Beers?
- How are lab-grown diamonds impacting the overall diamond market?
- What are the best points of entry into the diamond market for new traders and investors?
- and much more...
Learn more at http://thediamondanalyst.com/
Options Insider Radio Interviews: Talking Volatility And Portfolio Hedging With Northern Trust
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jon Cherry, Global Head of Options at Northern Trust. Mark and Jon discuss:
- The current extreme levels of volatility.
- How Northern Trust's options clients are responding to the recent market downturn.
- How much should clients really expect to pay to hedge their equity portfolios?
- And much more...
Guest: Stino Milito, Co-COO - Dash Financial Technologies
Mark and Stino discuss:
- The hidden world of an options ATS.
- How does an options ATS work?
- How much options volume actually trades through the Dash ATS?
- Why do we need an ATS in the options market?
- What about transparency and latency?
- Why haven't more firms launched ATS's in the options market?
- And much more
Options Insider Radio Interviews: Going Binary With Nadex
We kick off a new decade with the return of an old friend of the network - Dan Cook, Vice President of Business Development at Nadex. Mark and Dan discuss:
- New platform and product upgrades at Nadex
- The challenges of binary options including Google and Facebook banning binary advertising
- Getting more market makers to trade binaries
- Dealing with the explosive final minutes of a binary contract
- Binaries and volatility
- Crypto binary contracts
- The future of political and sports wagering
- And more...
OIR Interviews: Plugging the Options Data Fire Hose with Nasdaq
Mark is joined on this episode by:
- Oliver Albers, Senior Vice President and Head of Strategic Partnerships, Global Information Services, Nasdaq
Mark and Oliver discuss:
- What is The Nasdaq Smart Options Feed?
- Does it really reduce options bandwidth requirements by 80%?
- Why has no one done this before?
- Who is the target audience for this data feed?
- What are advisors and the retail community saying about the hassles of options data?
- How does someone get access to this feed?
- Why did Nasdaq buy Quandl?
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: Demystifying Lumber With MaterialsXchange
Mark is joined on this episode by:
- Mike Wisnefski, CEO of MaterialsXchange (MX)
Mark and Mike discuss:
- What MaterialsXchange is.
- The products that you can currently trade.
- Why they chose to list wood products.
- The products that you can currently trade.
- The response from the lumber trading community.
- Their plans to list other materials products.
- What the value is of bringing transparency to the opaque world of lumber market data.
- And much more..
OIR Interviews: Talking Trading Floors, Crypto and More with CBOE
Mark is joined on this episode by:
- Arianne Criqui, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Derivatives and Global Client Service, Cboe
Mark and Arianne discuss:
- What lured Arianne away from Goldman Sachs to work for Cboe.
- The future of crypto products at Cboe.
- The rise of the new Cboe trading floor.
- The potential to relaunch RVX for the modern era.
- What the options industry can do to bring more liquidity providers into the marketplace
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: Talking Volatility, Fragmentation, CAT and More with Dash Technologies
Mark is joined on this episode by:
- Glenn Lesko, Chief Growth Officer - Dash Technologies
Mark and Glenn discuss:
- The latest updates at Dash Technologies
- Thoughts on the current state of options fragmentation
- Auctions - bane or boon?
- The state of the CAT
- The impact of zero commissions on the options market
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: Talking Risk, Commissions and Crypto Widgets with Sterling Trading Tech
Mark is joined on this episode by:
- Jim Nevotti, President - Sterling Trading Tech
- Andrew Actman, Head of Business Development -Sterling Trading Tech
Mark, Andrew and Jim discuss:
- The latest developments on the Sterling Risk platform.
- The impact of zero commissions on the options brokerage space.
- The latest upgrades to Sterling Vol Trader - FKA Livevol.
- How do you find new prop shops customers in 2019?
- What is in Sterling's new Crypto Widget?
- Are we poised for a new round of acquisitions in the options brokerage space?
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: Talking Options and OTC ADRs with INTL FCStone
- Host: Mark Longo, Founder & CEO - The Options Insider Media Group
- Guest: Robert Boylan, MD Institutional Equities & Derivatives - INTL FCStone
Mark and Robert discuss:
- What is INTL FCStone?
- Are they really "the largest financial institution you've never heard of?"
- The wild world of OTC ADR trading.
- Their plans to launch a new electronic options offering.
- Their plans for the crypto market.
- The recent commission wars unfolding in the brokerage space.
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: Talking Crypto, Cons and Derivatives with Tabb Group
On this episode, Mark is joined by the new(ish) CEO of Tabb Group Bruce Morris. Mark and Bruce discuss:
- What is Tabb Group?
- How did Bruce transition from the world of financial media to research?
- Is crypto the next big area of research for Tabb Group?
- What's the difference between a Con and a Festival?
- Which derivatives markets are currently the most compelling for Tabb's clients?
- And much more...
OIR Interviews: Talking Options, Crypto and Free Commissions with TradeStation
- Host: Mark Longo, Founder & CEO - The Options Insider Media Group
- Guest: Nick LaMaina, SVP Product Management and Strategy - TradeStation Securities, Inc.
Mark and Nick discuss:
- Recent upgrades to TradeStation’s options offering,
- The launch of TradeStation Crypto,
- TradeStation’s thoughts on the race to zero commissions
- and much more...
OIR: Talking Market Data, CAT and Giving Back with STA
- Host: Mark Longo, Founder & CEO - The Options Insider Media Group
- Guest: Jim Toes, President & CEO - Securities Traders Association.
Mark and Jim discuss:
- What can attendees expect at the upcoming STA Market Structure Conference? Check out the agenda and register at www.SecuritiesTraders.org.
- Market data - should there be different costs for different tiers of customers?
- CAT - get ready for a bill coming in your inbox.
- and much more...
Options Insider Radio Interviews: Catching Up With ALTSO
Today's guest is Mead Welles, Co-Founder, Chairman and Treasurer
of A Leg To Stand On ("ALTSO"). ALTSO is a non-profit organization providing free orthopedic care including prosthetic limbs, orthotic devices, mobility aids, corrective surgery and rehabilitative care to children in the developing world. Its mission is to offer children who have lost their limbs in traumatic accidents or suffer from congenital disabilities the physical capabilities to access the opportunities and self-esteem earned through education, work and mobility.
ALTSO holds major fundraisers known as Rocktoberfests where financial professionals have an opportunity to perform in front of their peers. Learn more at www.ALTSO.org.
HOST: MARK LONGO, THE OPTIONS INSIDER MEDIA GROUP
- GUEST: Jeremie Bacon, CEO, Imagineer Technology Group
- Provide our listeners with an overview of your background in the financial technology space.
- What is Imagineer Technology Group?
- Tell us about your 3 different product offerings.
- What is Clienteer Web?
- Do you notice any unique challenges within your different niches (hedge funds, venture funds, private equity) or are they effectively the same from a software design point of view?
- When a fund reaches out to you, what is the #1 thing that they are looking for? Marketing? IR Documentation? What is the big driver?
- Do you notice any particular unique needs for the institutional players in the derivatives space vs. traditional equities?
- They say the fund management software industry is booming. Why is that? What is driving that growth?
- What can we do to grow the alts pie and get more funds into alts?
- What are you seeing in the institutions and crypto markets?
- What is the latest with the Illinois Technology Association?
- And much more...
Exploring Crypto Regulation With The Crypto Mom
- HOST: MARK LONGO, THE OPTIONS INSIDER MEDIA GROUP
- GUEST: Hester Peirce, SEC Commissioner
- How do you feel about the markets dubbing you the "Crypto Mom."
- What will it will take for the SEC to approve a bitcoin ETF?
- Do you think we need the ETF to finally bring the crypto markets in the US into the mainstream?
- Many of our guests are worried that the US is starting to fall behind the rest of the world from a crypto regulatory perspective. Do you share that concern?
- What are your thoughts on the current bitcoin futures market?
- Do we need approval levels for ETPs similar to the approval levels for options?
- Will we ever see an inverse volatility product again or are those days behind us?
- And much more...
Options Insider Radio Interviews: Exploring Predictive Alt Data With Exegy
- Guest: David Taylor, CTO of Exegy (www.exegy.com)
Mark and David discuss:
- What is Exegy?
- What are the latest developments in the alternative data market?
- Can you actually use enhanced data feeds to make sub-second predictions on a stock?
- What are the challenges in providing enhanced data and analytics for options traders?
- Is the Race to Zero dead?
- Update on the status of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT)
- And much more...
Talking Volatility, Liquidity, Algos and TCA With FlexTradeOur guest today is Rob Brogan, VP of Equity Options at Flextrade. Mark and Rob discuss:
- What is Flextrade?
- Is Flextrade flexing its muscles in the TCA space?
- How do you determine the best order routing for options based on liquidity?
- Breaking into options backtesting.
- Does the increasing options fragmentation lead to more opportunities for algos?
- How did the market turbulence of 2018 impact the options technology market?
- And much more...
Our guest today is Chen Fang, Co-Founder & CEO of Lumina. Mark and Chen discuss:
- What is Lumina?
- How is Lumina bridging the gap between the traditional financial market and the exploding crypto markets?
- Are VC firms still interested in funding crypto startups these days?
- How do you sift through the mountains of data to find the true cost basis of your trades?
- Why is so much of the crypto space still running on Excel spreadsheets?
- Is cyber security the chief concern for any new crypto-oriented startup?
- Why are there still so many problems with the data sources in the crypto market?
- And much more...
Talking Crypto Algos with AlgoTraderOur guest today is Andy Flury, Founder and CEO of AlgoTrader. Mark and Andy discuss:
- What is AlgoTrader?
- What is happening on the algo front in crypto?
- Are we seeing the same degree of algo penetration in the crypto market that we see in equities or options?
- What types of algos are popular in the crypto market?
- And much more...
GUEST: ED SZADO - Associate Professor of Finance at the Providence College School of Business.
Prof. Ed discusses his study Endowment Risk Management and Return Enhancement with Listed Index and ETF Options with Mark.
- He explains his findings to our listeners.
- Were there any surprises that he learned in doing the study?
- What takeaways does he have from the study?
Interview with Ed Boyle, CEO at BOX Options Exchange.
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WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES! LAST YEAR WAS A RECORD FOR OPTIONS VOLUME. THIS YEAR NOT SO MUCH. DO YOU THINK WE’RE ON TRACK TO BEAT 2018? WHAT’S YOUR OUTLOOK FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR FROM A VOLUME PERSPECTIVE? HEALTHY GROWTH? SAME? DECLINE?
-
UPDATE ON THE TRADING FLOOR - WHAT IS TRADING ON IT?
-
WHEN CAN I COME SEE IT?
-
BOX & VOLATILITY: WHEN WILL WE SEE THE REALVOL PRODUCTS?
-
- REALVOL/REAL DAY
- ANY OTHER PROPRIETARY PRODUCTS ON THE DOCKET?
- ARE YOU LAUNCHING A BOX FUTURES EXCHANGE?
- 16 EXCHANGES - WHEN IS BOX GETTING INTO THE GAME?
- AFTER HOURS OPTIONS TRADING?
- WHAT’S THE NEXT BIG INNOVATION COMING TO THE OPTIONS MARKET?
- WHAT BRINGS YOU TO OIC THIS YEAR? ANY ANNOUNCEMENTS?
-
WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP MARKET MAKERS?
-
AUCTIONS?
-
DISPLAYED QUOTES?
-
COMPLEX ORDER BOOKS: HOW DO WE GET THEM TO TALK TO EACH OTHER?
-
AFTER HOURS TRADING FOR OPTIONS?
-
- OTHER NEW BOX PRODUCTS?
-
BOX AND CRYPTO?
Patrick McCreary - Executive Director, Volant Trading
- Give us an overview of Volant?
- Do you specialize in certain markets?
False price improvements? - What brings you to OIC this year? Any announcements?
- New Vol products - SPIKES, etc.
- Thought on current volatility landscape?
Greg Ferrari - Managing Director or Global Trading & Market Services, NASDAQ
- What’s new at Nasdaq Options?
- You currently have six exchanges, any plans to add any more?
- VolDex/SkewDex update?
- After hours options trading?
- What’s the next big innovation coming to the options market?
What brings you to OIC this year? Any announcements? - Client Experience Center?
Today's guest is Michael Ourabah, the CEO of BSO. Mark and Michael discuss:
- What is BSO?
- How is the race to zero shaping up overseas?
- How are the market data and connectivity wars shaping up in the crypto marketplace?
- How do we solve the inherent latency issues plaguing crypto right now?
- Can you build a one-stop shop for crypto connectivity?
- Is there still a strong institutional appetite for crypto?
- How is the emerging crypto scene in the Middle East?
- And much more...
Unlocking Volatility Secrets Using Data Science
Our guests today are:
- Jay Schuren, GM Time Series Data Scientist at Data Robot
- Jimmy Heinz, Equity Volatility Trader at the Gelber Group.
Mark, Jay and Jimmy discuss:
- Why does a volatility trading group need a data scientist?
- How does data science improve volatility trading?
- Which product classes yield the greatest benefit from data science analysis?
- How do outlier volatility events like February 2018 impact the analysis?
- Is data science the future of volatility trading?
- And much more...
Nick LaMaina - SVP, Product Management and Strategy
Jeff Peters, Senior Product Manager
- What’s new at Tradestation?
- An update on the new branding initiative?
- Mobile functionality
- Option Station Pro?
- How are your efforts progressing to target new basic retail clients?
- What’s new for options traders at Tradestation?
- Is the App Store still active?
- What is the percentage of customers that use APIs?
- You did not have a great showing in our Options Broker Madness tournament this year. What can we do to improve your ranking in 2019?
- What brings you to OIC this year? Any announcements?
Henry Schwartz, Founder & President - Trade Alert
- Give us an update on the state of the industry.
- Any surprises this year?
- How many names comprise the top 50% of volume this year?
- Is there fragmentation across new exchanges?
- What’s new at Trade Alert?
-
New condition codes?
-
Is this the death of passive?
Our guest today is Ian Rosen the CEO of Stocktwits. Mark and Ian discuss:
- Why the heck is StockTwits launching a brokerage service?
- What sets TradeApp apart from the many other brokers out there?
- How do they plan to make money with zero commissions and zero payment for order flow?
- What products will be available on Trade App at launch?
- When can we expect options?
-How are the new Premium Rooms faring? Are people lining up to pay for rooms? - Why did they raise the StockTwits character limit from 140 to 1000?
-
Talking Crypto, Political Intrigue and Coconut Water with Tony Saliba
Tony Saliba is back in the studio catching us up on the latest developments. Mark and Tony have a fascinating conversation covering a wide range of topics including:
- Tony's Crowd of Fame award
- A turbulent year and the end of Crypto Winter
- The new crypto offerings from Mercury Digital Assets and the San Juan Mercantile Exchange
- The prospects for crypto options in the U.S.
- The future of options in China.
- Devious political intrigue around the CHX acquisition.
- Tasty delicious coconut water!
- And much more. You need to tune into this one...
Getting Back In The Trading Job Market with STA
Our guest for this episode is Jim Toes, President of the Securities Traders Association. Mark and Jim discuss
- What is STA doing at the Options Industry Conference?
- What options initiatives is STA working on currently?
- Is strike mitigation the solution to the problems facing options market makers?
- What is on the docket for the STA 2019 Market Structure Conference?
- How can we help traders who may be looking for new jobs? STA might have an answer for that.
- And much more...
TALKING ADVISORS AND OPTIONS WITH RAYMOND JAMESOur guest for this episode is Gary Franklin, VP - Retail Options Trading and Strategies for Raymond James. Mark and Gary discuss:
- Overall options penetrations with advisors - is it growing or shrinking?
- What is the level of options interest at Raymond James?
- The challenges of finding liquidity for clients in the options market.
- The options wish list for advisors.
- And much more...
Talking Renaissance, Risk and Real-Time OI With OCC
Our guest for this episode is John Davidson, CEO of the Options Clearing Corporation. Mark and John discuss:
- What is the Renaissance Initiative?
- Looking back at a turbulent 2018 for the options market.
- The challenges of modeling risk for volatility products
- OIC carrying the torch for education in the options markets
- After-Hours options trading
- Crypto Currencies
- Why can't we have real-time open interest updates.
- And much more...
What the Heck is Gatsby?
Did you ever ask yourself - what is Gatsby? We decided to find out at OIC 2019. Here's the answer...
- UPDATE ON ORATS?
- NEW OFFERINGS?
- UPDATE ON EARNINGS SEASON? ANY SURPRISES?
- WHAT BRINGS YOU TO OIC THIS YEAR?
- ANY SURPRISES FROM THE CONFERENCE THIS YEAR?
- HOW ARE THE CIGARS?
Talking After-Hours, Trading Floors and More with NYSE
- WHAT’S NEW AT NYSE/AMEX OPTIONS? -
- WALK US THROUGH THE VOLUME BREAKDOWN - NYSE VS AMEX. WHO IS USING WHICH EXCHANGE AND FOR WHAT?
- HOW ARE THE TRADING FLOORS FARING IN 2019?
- What is NYSE WEST? - Today NYSE ushered in a new era on the West Coast when we cut the ribbon on NYSE West - our new home base for the NYSE Arca Options trading floor in downtown San Francisco.
- Have we reached peak exchange in the options market?
- FANG PLUS INDEX OPTIONS - WHAT ARE THEY?
- AFTER HOURS OPTIONS TRADING - will we ever see it?
- What can we do to help options market makers?
- WHAT’S THE NEXT BIG INNOVATION COMING TO THE OPTIONS MARKET?
- WHAT BRINGS YOU TO OIC THIS YEAR? ANY ANNOUNCEMENTS?
Options Insider Radio Live From OIC 2019GUEST: Craig Iseli, Chief Operating Officer of SpiderRock
- What is Spider Rock
- What are the origins of that interesting name?
- Have we reached the point of danger with too many options exchanges?
- Are options really penetrating to the financial advisor market?
- Are options the silver bullet for advisors looking to fight back against robo advisors?
- Where are the biggest opportunities in the options market - advisors, asset management, software or something else entirely?
- What can the options market do to bring more market makers back into the fold?
- How are auctions impacting the liquidity landscape?
- And much more...
CATCHING UP WITH AN OPTIONS ICON - Thomas Peterffy
Our CEO had a chance to catch up with an options icon at OIC 2019. Their far-reaching conversation covered:
- Highlights from Thomas's 42-year career in the options market
- What is the enduring legacy of Interactive Brokers?
- Thomas's views on the new wave of zero commission brokerage firms invading the space.
- Why he decided to exit the options market-making business.
- Does he feel the options markets were irreparably harmed when exchanges became for-profit companies?
- Is he pleased with the performance of his stock on IEX?
- Is he still a proponent of a randomized speed bump for stocks and options?
- Did the options market drop the ball by allowing esoteric products like XIV to become prevalent with retail traders?
- His thoughts about crypto as an asset class?
- What excites him about the future of the options market?
- And much more...
Options Insider Radio Interviews: The Dark Art of Real-Time Margin
- Host: Mark S. Longo, Founder - The Options Insider Media Group
- Guest: Alex Lamb, Global Head of Marketing -The Technancial Company
On this episode Mark and Alex discuss:
- The dark art of real-time margin
- How did Technancial weather the storm of MIFID 2 as well as the current Brexit furor?
- The importance of risk management in volatile markets.
- And much more...
Options Insider Radio: Funding Quants With CloudQuant
- Host: Mark Longo, Founder & CEO - The Options Insider Media Group
- Guest: Morgan Slade, CEO & CIO - CloudQuant
Mark and Morgan discuss:
- What the heck is CloudQuant?
- Who should use it?
- What separates CloudQuant from the other competitors in the crowded online quant marketplace?
- How much capital has CloudQuant invested in new strategies?
- How you can get your strategy funded by CloudQuant.
- And much more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Evan Schnidman, Founder and CEO of Prattle.
They discuss:
- The Prattle origin story
- Real-time sentiment analysis
- Why social analysis is insufficient
- Causal language over causal relationships
- Who are the intended users?
- Sentiment alerts
- What did Prattle say about the recent Fed meeting?
- Any surprising take-aways from their analysis?
- Predictions for 2019?
- Is there a Prattle platform for retail traders?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jared Broad, Founder and CEO of QuantConnect. They discuss:
- What is QuantConnect?
- Who is using the platform?
- What are the most popular markets/products with QuantConnect users?
- The move from Brooklyn to Seattle
- What are Alpha Streams?
- What is the Algorithm Framework?
- The LEAN platform
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Thomas McInerney, Chief Product Officer at Open Finance Network.
They discuss:
- Focusing on a subset of tokenized securities
- Tokenizing illiquid securities
- Blockchain transfer of tokens
- What is Open Finance?
- Who are early users of the platform?
- What else do they offer?
- Getting liquidity providers on board
- Regulatory worries
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Eric Metz, CIO of SpiderRock Advisors. They discuss:
- What is SpiderRock?
- What types of overlays do they trade?
- Automating SMAs for advisors
- How do they prefer to pay for puts?
- Have the recent volatility levels impacted the AUM?
- What is the near-term volatility outlook?
- What do customers want these days?
- What dis the adoption rate of options for advisors?
- And more....
In this episode, Mark is joined by Bernie Schwartz, the Trading Technologies Options Product Manager.
They discuss:
- Options functionality at TT
- TT's enhanced strategy creation capabilities
- How easy is it to execute delta-neutral trade?
- What's TT's secret sauce?
- The TradeStation partnership
- Any other partnerships?
- Cryptocurrency options
- New listings
- Crypto selloff and impact on interest
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mark Woolfenden, Managing Director at Euromoney TRADEDATA.
They discuss:
- What is Euromoney TRADEDATA?
- What is MIFID 2?
- Doing the heavy lifting with regulators
- Dealing with the evolution of Dodd-Frank
- What about Brexit?
- What else is happening at Euromoney TRADEDATA?
- Has an API offering opened more doors?
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Brian Kelly, Portfolio Manager, BKC ETF and BKCM Digital Assets Fund
They discuss:
- How did he become interested in crypto and blockchain
- BKC ETF - a blockchain ETF
- Not holding the underlying in the fund
- What's the secret sauce to this portfolio allocation?
- The relationship with REX Shares
- How has the response been?
- Can blockchain be more impactful than the internet?
- Volume and interest to-date
- Volatility and portfolio performance
- To correlate or not correlate?
- Will there be options?
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Shelly Brown, Executive of Vice President of MIAX, and Simon Ho, CEO of T3 Index.
They discuss:
- What is T3?
- The Spikes Index
- Multi-listed SPY options
- How does it compare with VIX movement?
- Removing the abstraction between the index and the derivatives
- Does it include skew?
- Taking steps to avoid allegations of price manipulation
- When will they start trading?
- Getting regulatory approval
- Market maker response
- The T3-MIAX partnership
- The MIAX-OIC advisor education conference
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ian Grieves, Head of Product at ErisX.
They discuss:
- Ian's background in financial services
- What is ErisX?
- Licensing swap futures to CME
- Getting investors on board
- What sets ErisX apart?
- What underlying will be delivered?
- Why is physical delivery important?
- The benefit of having a spot market in the same platform
- Getting institutional investors on board
- Working with different liquidity providers
- Will there be options?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Josh Greenwald, CEO of LXDX.
They discuss:
- What is LXDX?
- What makes LXDX different?
- Making crypto more palatable to institutional investors
- What is the goal of attending FIA?
- Crypto finding traction in Chicago
- What will LXDX offer at launch?
- What's the difference between the LXDX and CME methodologies?
- How can they put out so many trades per second?
- Routing orders away
- How has the response been?
- Thoughts on wash trading
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Eric Cott, Director of Financial Advisor Education at OIC.
They discuss:
- What's happening at OIC for financial advisors?
- What has been the response to the uptick in volatility?
- Supporting advisors to support clients
- Alternative investments
- Online strategy course
- Working with MIAX
- Updates to the website
- Studies to look for
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Henry Schwartz from Trade Alert and What's Trading
They discuss:
- What brings him to the FIA Conference
- Interesting trends in vendor presence
- What's going on in the market?
- What are people looking for these days?
- What are popular strategies right now?
- What new bells or whistles have they added?
- Plans for crypto?
- Linking to CME or ICE platforms?
- Will 2018 be a record-breaking year?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Marie Swift and Mike Avila.
They discuss:
- The upcoming Advisor Thought Leader Summit
- The celebrity platform day on November 9
- Who should attend?
- How to build a brand
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mike Avila and Michael Flores.
They discuss:
- Working in documentary film making
- What is making documentaries so hot these days?
- Why invest in a documentary?
- The power of three
- Exploring the Chicago trading scene as a documentary topic
- Why Chicago?
- How to participate?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Dave Weisberger, Co-Founder / CEO at CoinRoutes
They discuss:
- What is CoinRoutes?
- Taking steps to bring crypto to institutional investors
- Crypto NBBO?
- Bid/ask spreads versus fees
- Dearth of data
- Does CoinRoutes have the secret sauce?
- Do they facilitate relationships between clients and exchanges?
- Regulation
- Being an early adopter of technology
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Cathy Clay, Global Head of Information Solutions at Cboe.
They discuss:
- Speaking to equities traders from an options perspective
- Implementing CAT (consolidated audit trail) in the options space
- Have we reached the point where technology is sufficient to handle options data?
- Quote mitigation is an inefficiency problem, not a data problem
- Improvements to LiveVol
- Cboe DataShop
- Thoughts on crypto
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Sahak Manuelian, Managing Director of Equity Trading at Wedbush Securities.
They discuss:
- What services does Wedbush offer?
- Covering the healthcare, consumers, tech and financial sectors
- Biotech's insulation from trade war concerns
- Is it a stock-pickers market?
- Passive investing versus active stock selection
- The explosion of ETF offerings
- Market fragmentation
- The importance of talking to policymakers
- Tick pilot
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ravi Jain and Andrew Actman from Sterling Trading Tech.
They discuss:
- What's new in Sterling Vol Trader?
- Integrations and subsequent challenges
- What is driving growth?
- Taking on real-time risk analytics
- Cloud-based services
- Keeping costs down
- Thoughts on crypto
- Potential crypto partnerships
- Advanced trading simulator
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Peter Maragos, CEO of Dash Financial.
They discuss:
- Coming up for air after integration
- The Advanced Portfolio Trading Solution
- What brings Peter to STA?
- Ensuring a level playing field
- Transparency by design
- Best execution is an art, not a science
- How important is open outcry to their business?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jen Nayar, CEO of Vela.
They discuss:
- Acquisitions and their integration
- Any surprises?
- The callenges of regulation
- Asset expansion plans
- New CTO
- How do they plan to bring in new users?
- What about crypto?
- The STA Conference
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Soumya Basu, CTO at bloXroute.
They discuss:
- What is bloXroute?
- What does Soumya do there?
- Closing the Bitcoin data gap
- What makes their approach different?
- Rethinking the block size
- What is it about Chicago?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Toby Allen, Senior Partner and Head of Digital Assets at Akuna Capital
They discuss:
- Toby's background in trading
- What does Akuna trade?
- The nuances of the CME and CBOE crypto futures
- What is their go-to crypto trading vehicle?
- What do the OTC skew graphs look like?
- Is there any bias to the flow?
- Getting the processes right for crypto trading
- Growing arbitrage opportunities
- Is the downturn in the underlying dampening demand?
- The plight of liquidity providers
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mead Welles, Founder and CEO of Octogon Asset Management, and Co-founder and Chairman of ATLSO
They discuss:
- What is A Leg to Stand On?
- How did Mead get involved with ALTSO?
- Rocktoberfest Chicago
- Rocktoberfest New York
- What's the Joshi limb?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Lynette Lim, Co-CEO and Director of Phillip Capital Inc.
They discuss:
- The origins of Phillip Capital
- Launching the FCM
- Asian roots
- The early years
- The upcoming Asian Trading Symposium
- The shifting trading strategies of Asian investors
- Government paternalism
- The ebb and flow of progress
- Different use cases for Asian investors
- Singapore's leadership role in the Asian markets
RISK DISCLAIMER: Trading in futures products entails significant risks of loss which must be understood prior to trading and may not be appropriate for all investors. Past performance of actual trades or strategies cited herein is not necessarily indicative of future performance. The information contained herein is provided to you for information only and believed to be drawn from reliable sources but cannot be guaranteed; Phillip Capital Inc. assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. The views and opinions expressed in this letter are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Phillip Capital Inc. or its staff.
In this episode, Mark is joined by Scott Nelson, CEO of Sweetbridge.
They discuss:
- What is Sweetbridge?
- Why blockchain?
- The Sweetbridge wallet
- What brought him to the Voice of Blockchain conference?
- Is Chicago becoming the hub of crypto trading?
- What should we look for in the crypto derivatives space?
- Where can you find out more? Sweetbridge.com
In this episode, Mark is joined by Joe Hernandez, Founder & CEO of the Chicago Blockchain Project, aka Disruption Joe
They discuss:
- Where does Disruption Joe come from?
- His Bitcoin backstory
- Chicago Blockchain Project
- Their upcoming event at Navy Pier, The Voice of Blockchain Conference
- The Chicago trading mindset versus the crypto/Blockchain mindset
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jim Toes, President of the Security Traders Association
They discuss:
- The Wisconsin STA Conference
- Working with FINRA
- The DC STA Conference: October 3-5
- What do they have for options traders?
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mark Davies and John Standerfer, the CEO and CTO of S3.
They discuss:
- What does S3 do?
- Volume and volatility are back
- Liquidity and execution issues
- Too many options symbols?
- More exchanges
- TCA in the options market
- Crypto obsession
- And more....
In this episode, Mark is joined by Rob D'Arco, CEO at Rival Systems.
They discuss:
- How was Rival formed?
- What does Rival do?
- What are the new functions customers can expect at Rival?
- Liquidity and the plight of market makers
- Generating new business
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Derek Urben, CFO and Director of Business Development at Coinigy.
They discuss:
- His background in the crypto space
- Why Wisconsin?
- Why use Coinigy?
- The benefits of decentralization
- Can you use the platform just for charting?
- Data services
- Who manages the wallet?
- Physical and digital security
- How is tether operated and regulated?
- Participating in ICOs
In this episode Mark is joined by Eric Gravengaard, CEO at Athena Bitcoin, Inc.
They discuss:
- Eric's history in finance
- Making the leap from options to crypto assets
- Shifting the crypto trading mecca
- Waiting for your trades in the crypto ether
- Physical location risk
- The Athena "floor" for Bitcoin traders
- Bitcoin ATMs and who needs them
- When can we expect to get Bitcoin options?
- Thoughts on crypto manipulation
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jerry Hanweck, CEO at Hanweck.
They discussed:
- How did Jerry start Hanweck?
- Their new real-time risk platform
- What is powering the platform?
- What are the components of the real-time risk platform?
- What can the industry to do incentivize market makers to stay?
- What else is coming from Hanweck?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Gary Katz, co-founder and former CEO of the International Securities Exchange.
They discuss:
- Gary receiving the Sullivan award at the Options Industry Conference
- Thoughts after being away from the conference for a few years
- His thoughts on how Nasdaq is integrating ISE
- Issues with liquidity
- The importance of market makers
- Caring for people on the autism spectrum
- Snack foods
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Dan Passarelli, founder of Market Taker Mentoring, and co-host of our very own Options Bootcamp.
They discuss:
- How to navigate liquidty issues
- The plight of liquidity providers
- Are people interesting in learing about crypto?
- The upcoming annual retreat
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ollie Cadman, Head of Business Operations at Vela.
They discuss:
- The Vela acquisitions spree
- How are the integrations of Options City and Object Trading going?
- The challenge to grow as business contracts
- Has there been increased interest in options from their clients?
- What about API access
- The fight for screen access
- What are the upcoming improvements for the Options City platform?
- Vela and crypto
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mandy Xu, Director and Chief Equity Derivatives Strategist at Credit Suisse.
They discuss:
- How did Mandy discover equity derivatives research?
- Is this the beginning of a new volatility regime?
- February's technical dislocation
- Expecting range-bound volatility
- The correlation component
- What are the key drivers of volatility?
- Why VIX is not the best measure of risk
- Does Credit Suisse have a proprietary volatility instrument?
- And more...
In this interview, Mark is joined by Rob Brogan, Vice President of Equity Derivative Servies at FlexTrade.
They discuss:
- Monitoring real-time risk
- APIs vs front end
- The fight for screen space
- Liquidity issues
- Too many strikes, too few trades
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Kapil Rathi, Head of Equity Options at Cboe.
They discuss:
- How many exchanges are too many exchanges?
- Is it time to reveiw the regulatory environment?
- Liquidity issues
- Limiting the live order book
- SPY volatility products
- After-hours options trading
- Listing crypto options
- And more...
When Mark was in Florida for the 2018 Options Industry Conference, he had a chance to sit down with Jim Toes, President of STA
They discussed:
- What is the STA?
- Why is the STA attending the Options Industry Conference?
- What are the regulatory focuses of the STA?
- Thoughts on auctions
- Transparency versus speed
- Issues in DC
When Mark was in Florida for the 2018 Options Industry Conference, he had a chance to sit down with Shelly Brown, Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning and Joe Bracco, Senior Vice President and Head of Sales at MIAX.
They discussed:
- The proposal for the third MIAX exchange
- Addressing the critiques
- What does MIAX bring to the market?
- Why competition matters
- What about the liquidity issue?
- Penny pricing
- Thoughts on auctions
- And more...
When Mark was in Florida for the 2018 Options Industry Conference, he had a chance to sit down with Andy Nybo, Director at Burton-Taylor International Consulting.
They discussed:
- What does market data research entail?
- Sifting through the dearth of market data
- The growth in the need for data
- How to define liquidity
- Thoughts on auctions
- What about the number of exchanges?
- And more...
When Mark was in Florida for the 2018 Options Industry Conference, he had a chance to sit down with John Davidson, President and Chief Operating Officer at OCC.
They discussed:
- John's tenure in the financial services industry
- The function of being a clearinghouse
- Technical upgrades on the horizon
- The nuts and bolts of clearing
- The symbology initiative
- Issues with liquidity
- Working with Washington
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he sat down with Ed Boyle, CEO at BOX.
They discuss:
- Update on the BOX trading floor
- What's trading on the BOX trading floor?
- What's the theme of the 2018 Options Industry Conference?
- What can be done about the liquidity issue?
- How to mitigate risk for liquidity providers?
- Thoughts on auctions
- The number of exchanges
- After hours options trading
- The demand for new products
In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he sat down with Pat Luongo, Director of AES Options Sales at Credit Suisse.
They discuss:
- Pat's history in the options industry
- Who are their customers?
- Welcoming back volatility
- Correcting liquidity concerns
- Fragmentation of trading venues
- Stemming the tide of losing liquidity providers
- After-hours options trading
- And more
In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he caught up with Gary Franklin, Vice President of Retail Options Trading and Strategies at Raymond James.
They discuss:
- What brought Raymond James to the Options Industry Conference?
- The evolution of interest in options for advisors
- Clients driving demand for options growth
- Demystifying options
- How has the increase in volatility impacted their clients?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he caught up with Chris Larkin, Senior Vice President of Trading Product at E*Trade.
They discuss:
- The acquisition and integration of Options House and E*Trade platforms
- Rebuilding the platform from the ground up
- Lowering the barrier to entry for new options traders
- What percentage of trades happen on mobile devices?
- Increasing the community offering
- Addressing the liquidity issue
- What about after hours options trading?
- And more..
In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he caught up with the Flowmaster himself, Henry Schwartz from Trade Alert.
They discuss:
- State of the options industry
- Concentration of liquidity
- The optics of tight quotes versus thin liquidity
- Unintended consequences of auctions
- Volume data; where will the year end?
- Single stocks taking volume back from ETFs
- The controversey regarding VIX settlement
- What is coming next from Trade Alert?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he caught up with Kevin Kennedy, Senior Vice President of U.S. Derivatives at NASDAQ.
They discuss:
- The trading floor at the PHLX
- The old floor versus the new floor
- What has been the 2018 trend for options so far?
- What a difference a year makes!
- What does Kevin anticipate for growth for the rest of the year?
- The trends in liquidity, and how to correct them
- How can we reverse the trend of people leaving the liquidity business?
- Thoughts on additional options exchanges
- Executing complex orders
- What are they doing in the volatility space?
- What's NASDAQ doing with crypto?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is at the Options Industry Conference, where he caught up with JJ Kinahan, Chief Market Strategist and Managing Director at TD Ameritrade.
They discuss:
- How has the integration with Scottrade gone?
- Focusing on options education with the new clients
- The evolution of options broker
- How options educational content is evolving
- How is the reception for TD Ameritrade's new content?
- How does TD Ameritrade build and foster a community?
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Tom Sosnoff, Co-CEO at Tasty Trade.
They discuss:
- Winning the Options Broker Madness tournament in their first year participating
- What sets Tasty Trade apart from the competition?
- The first year in the live of Tasty Trade
- New entrants shaking up the options space
- No charge for closing trades!
- Is there any intention of going public?
- The challenge of creating compelling content
Listener questions:
- When can I trade futures options in an IRA account on Tasty Works?
- Does Tasty Works offer portfolio margin and API access?
- What is his option of portfolio margining?
- What about the lack of after-hours trading for options?
Tom talks about
- Market making
- Liquidity
- Naked calls in an IRA
In this episode, Mark is joined by Tony Kolton, Founder and CEO of Prognos Analytics.
They discuss:
- Tony's background in the options industry
- Surviving the crash of '87
- The genesis of his research methodology
- Options Geiger counter
- Determining what the "smart" money is doing
- WYNN, TSLA
- Crypto, crypto, crypto
- What is the purest asset class?
- How to learn more about Prognos
In this episode, Mark is joined by Yuriy Shterk, the Head of Product Management for Derivatives - Americas at Fidessa.
They discuss:
- Is there a particular product the are focusing on these days?
- How has the increase in volatility impacted their clients?
- Volatility is bringing in new participants to the market
- Where is the biggest up-tick in activity?
- Any plans to enter the crypto space?
- Fidessa's options trading tools
- Post-trade work flow optimization
- Fighting for screen real estate
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Tony Saliba, author and CEO of Matrix Holdings.
They discuss:
- The book on the Chinese options market and resulting educational tour
- Is there another book in the works?
- Updates on the ChiX deal
- What is Matrix Holdings?
- Why get back into financial technology?
- Potential partnerships with futures and options users
- Bots with persona
- Potential in cryptos
- The crypto / options time line comparison
- When might there be crypto options?
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Geoff Sharp, Managing Director and Head of Sales for the Eris Exchange.
They discuss:
- What is Eris Exchange
- What are the benefits of using Eris Exchange?
- What are Eris swap futures?
- Growth in open interest
- Challenges they have faced bringing transparency to the swaps market
- Building the ecosystem
- Their patent award
- How the return of volatility impacted activity
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Sean Smith, Managing Director of Derivatives Licensing & Exchange Data, and Ron Bundy, Global Head of Strategic Accounts at FTSE Russell.
They discuss:
- What are some highlights from the past month from FTSE Russell?
- The return of volatility
- Where have volumes grown?
- What brought them to FIA Boca?
- A check in on RVX
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by John Deters Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Multi Asset Solutions, Cboe Global Markets.
They discuss:
- John's background in financial services
- What are multi asset solutions?
- How is the integration with BATS unfolding?
- The VIX manipulation study
- Will they bring back VXO?
- Thoughts about XIV and SVXY
- Responsible use of volatility products
- The possibility of options on crypto currencies
- And more...
Some of the stats Derek and Blu mentioned:
In this episode, Mark is joined by Derek Sammann, Global Head of Commodities and Options Products and Blu Putnam Chief Economist at CME Group.
They discuss:
- Looking at options at the FIA conference
- Volatility spike is a great opportunity to use options
- Interesting move in the flight to quality
- The global use for options
- Globalizing participation
- Re-defining who CME Group is and who they want to be
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jon Cherry, Head of U.S. Options at Northern Trust Capital Markets.
They discuss:
- What does Northern Trust do in options?
- Who are their clients?
- What services do they provide?
- What are the most common uses of options for Northern Trust clients?
- How have clients responded to the recent changes in the market?
- The benefits of the consultative approach
- What products do they use most often?
- The explosion and implosion of inverse volatility products
- What's to come from Northern Trust in options?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jonathan Molchan Portfolio Manager, Horizons ETF Management (US), LLC.
They discuss:
- What is Horizon's ETF Management?
- Jonathan's background in financial services
- The Horizon's flagship product: QYLD
- Current and upcoming products, including using Russell Indexes
- Why cap the upside?
- What about commodities?
- Passive versus active portfolio management
- To learn more, visit the Horizons website
Mark attended the Inside ETFs conference and met with Rolf Agather, Managing Director of North America Research at FTSE Russell. They discussed:
- Rolf's background in financial services
- How does FTSE Russell define smart beta?
- The uses of smart beta
- Advisors' awareness of smart beta
- The resurgence of interest in beta
- Can smart beta bridge the divide between active and passive management?
- Emergence of fixed income taking advantage of systematic sources of return
- What's coming next from FTSE Russell?
Mark attended the Inside ETFs conference and ran into Eric Cott. They discussed:
- OCC's perspective on ETF options
- What is the level of options interest in ETF providers and traders?
- Total cleared volume for 2017
- Is there a shift from passive to active portfolio management afoot?
- The new OIC options certificate for advisors
- What about Bitcoin options?
- Will the new tax code impact options traders?
Today's guest is world-renowned financial innovator, Dr. Richard L. Sandor, who is widely regarded as the father of interest rate derivatives and the father of the carbon markets.
He discusses:
- The American Financial Exchange
- The genesis of AFX: viability of LIBOR
- You have to be early to be on time
- Will there be Ameribor futures and options?
- Expanding liquidity providing
- What is the relationship with Cboe?
- What is on the horizon for AFX in 2018?
- How things played out with the Climate Exchange
- His 2017 book, "How I Saw It"
- His forthcoming book "Electronic Trading and the Blockchain"
- Is crypto the tip of the iceberg?
- And more
In this episode we feature John Kinahan, CEO of Group One Trading
He discusses:
- His background in the financial markets and journey to becoming CEO of Group One
- What are the biggest changes that have happened at Group One?
- The impact of technology, and the demands of technological advances
- The metamorphosis of skills required to work in finance
- The Group One market maker training program
- How has market making morphed over time?
- The challenge of weekly options: a double-edged sword.
- Why did mini options fail?
- What can we do to incent firms to stay in the business or even enter it new in 2018?
- The rise of the open outcry trading floor
- The cost and risk associated with connecting to so many venues
- What is it has been over the past year with VIX remaining so low yet continuing to do record volume?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mike Beller, CEO of Thesys Technologies. They discuss:
- What is Thesys Technologies?
- What does Thesys Technologies do?
- CAT chat (consolidated audit trail)
- What is the status of the CAT?
- When will it go live?
- Security issues being a hangup
- Data management
- Quote updates yield data burstiness
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Steve Tumen, CEO of Deep Systems.
They discuss:
- Steve's background in finance and how did he start Deep Systems
- What does Deep Systems target?
- Can it be integrated with other systems?
- The Deep Systems three pillars of service
- Pushing the value proposition and optimal efficiency
- Looking for more efficiency
- Does the fragmented exchange landscape impact Deep Systems' effectiveness?
- The compliance issue
- Choosing what to put in the cloud
- Crypto, block chain, and more
In this episode, Mark is joined by David Hait, founder of OptionMetrics, LLC.
They discuss:
- Is VIX irrelevant? The Pros and Cons of VIX, the Market's Fear Gauge
- Are the answers lurking in the VIX futures term structure?
- What would an ideal VIX look like?
- Single name volatility products?
- Skew analysis and volatility
- Findings and takeaways from ORC 2017
- “The Risk Premium That Never Was: A Fair Value Explanation of the Volatility Spread”
- Thoughts on Bitcoin
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Craig Fuller, CEO of TransRisk and Paul Cusenza, Chairman and CEO of the Nodal Exchange.
They discuss:
- Their backgrounds and how they came to finance
- What is TransRisk? What is the Nodal Exchange?
- How do they work together?
- What are trucking freight futures?
- Similarities to the energy markets
- How will the contracts settle?
- Portfolio margining
- What is the timing for releasing these futures?
- What has the early response been?
- Nodal's first foray into the options market
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ian Rosen, CEO of StockTwits.
They discuss:
- Ian's history in the financial services industry
- What is Stocktober Fest?
- What's new from StockTwits?
- Demographics of StockTwits users
- Flattening the onramp to investing
- What percentage of users are active options traders?
- How many people are discussing crypto?
- Bringing in new options traders
- StockTwits users level of interest in crypto
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mark Casey, President and CEO of Apcela.
They discuss:
- Mark's backgound in the financial services space
- What is Apcela?
- What sets Apcela's trading platform apart?
- The race to zero
- Cloud adoption, or lack thereof
- Improving the adoption of public cloud technologies
- The market data wars
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jim Shinn, Predata's co-founder and CEO.
They discuss:
- Jim's background
- Using big data to predict behavior
- The political VIX: PVIX
- Bitcoin, AI, and the future of fintech
- How do they analyze social media to predict behavior?
- Monitoring metadata from conversations
- How do they work with options traders?
- What is the PVIX predicting?
- Find out more at predata.com
In this episode, Mark is joined by Frank Johnson, Managing Dand Kurt Smith, CFO, at Revenue-Share Capital
They discuss:
- What was the genesis for Revenue-Share Capital?
- How did OptionScape influence Revenue-Share Capital?
- What differentiates Revenue-Share Capital from traditional venture capitalists?
- Generating income from cash flow, not profit
- Performing due diligence
- Start up interests: fintech and blockchain
- Who do they want to partner with?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Matt Gill, Director of Risk Advisory Services at RSM US LLP.
They discuss:
- What is RSM?
- How to deal with the fluid regulatory environment
- Dodd-Frank
- Data privacy
- Cyber security
- A global view on data privacy regulation
- Choice Act/Volcker Rule
- System safeguards and regulator
- Crypto currency from an accounting point-of-view
- Today's Bitcoin event
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jared Broad, Founder and CEO of QuantConnect.
They discuss:
- The genesis of QuantConnect
- What is QuantConnect?
- Fast-tracking people's development
- Making data more accessible
- The challenge of the crypto market
- What kinds of algos are coming up for Bitcoin?
- What is the Broadcast tab?
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Tom Watson, Head of Sales at Hanweck.
They discuss:
- What is Hanweck's enhanced data feed?
- Going beyond implied vols and Greeks
- Real-time margin functionality
- The benefits of outsourcing
- Parallell processing capabilities
- Working with The OCC
- The fluid regulatory environment
- Filling a void in broker capacity
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Nick LeMaina, Senior Vice President of Strategic Brokerage Services at TradeStation.
They discuss:
- Who are the customers of TradeStation's Strategic Brokerage Services?
- What asset classes are their primary focus?
- How do their customers use options?
- What are the most popular tools on the TradeStation platform?
- The evolution of back-testing tools
- Commissions and fees
- What is TradeStation doing on the idea generation front?
- Optimizing the mobile experience
- Overnight trading
In this episode Mark is joned by Lanre Sarumi, Founder and CEO fo Riskbone LLC.
They discuss:
- What is Riskbone RMS?
- What was the genesis of the product?
- What does it do?
- What are the primary products that CTAs are using on the platform?
- What is Level Trading Field?
- Research in the crypto market
- What would volatility skew look like on Bitcoin options if they were listed today?
- Will there be a crypto futures exchange in the future?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Georgio Stoev, Product Manager for Futures and Listed Options at Saxo Bank.
They discuss:
- Georgio's background in the financial services industry
- Saxo Bank is diving into options
- What else does Saxo Bank offer?
- Who do they partner with?
- The popularity of options for European institutional investors
- What percentage of their options flow is European versus American-based?
- What about warrants?
- Are options becoming more popular with European investors in general?
- What are some changes to the European regulatory environment?
- And more
Mark is joined by Mary Savoie, Executive Director of the Options Industry Council (OIC) and First Vice President, Industry Services for The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC).
They discuss:
- Mary's background in the options industry
- The 25th anniversary of the Options Industry Council
- What is the origin of the OIC?
- The mission of the OIC
- The newly upgraded website, optionseducation.org
- How does OIC support advisors?
- The OIC video series
- And more...
In this episode, Mark is joined by Michael Mollet, Director of Product Development at CBOE and CFE.
They discuss:
- Bitcoin and the potential for listed derivatives
- What is the proposal?
- Why now?
- Partnering with Gemini
- What exactly is the product they plan to launch?
- How is settlement determined?
- What is the timing on releasing this product?
- Will there be Bitcoin options?
- What about a Bitcoin VIX?
- What about other cryptocurrencies?
- What else is on the CFE horizon?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Rande Howell, Trader Psychologist, who has more than 15 years of practice as a licensed therapist and performance psychology coach.
They discuss:
- What does a trader psychologist do?
- The thin line between fear/anger and revenge trading
- Freedom from emotion versus freedom of emotion
- What attracted him to performance psychology
- Figuring out a new set of rules
- Who is Rande's typical client?
- What is the number one issue people need to overcome?
- Redefining winning and losing
- Controlling what you can control gives traders the edge
- Knowing when to cut your losses
- Moving out of mediocrity is about performance
- How do you start managing emotion?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ed Boyle, CEO of the BOX Options Exchange. They discuss:
- Why are they launching a new options trading floor?
- How are they going to incent options order flow?
- The backlash against new exchanges
- What will trade on the floor versus electronically?
- How many firms will make markets?
- What about the PIP?
- What can we do to bring people back to market making?
- The search for the holy grail
In this episode, Mark is joined by Joe Halpern, Founder and CEO of Exceed Investments.
They discuss:
- What is Exceed Investments?
- The Exceed Defined Shield Investment Fund
- Is there a standardized methodology for the fund?
- The obsession with short duration
- How did they arrive at 12.5%
- How are they dealing with record low volatility?
- The volatility in the political sphere
- On the hunt for yield
- The use of options by financial advisors
- Want more information? Check out catalystmf.com or exceedinvestments.com
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jen Nayar, CEO of Vela Trading Technologies.
They discuss:
- Major acquisitions: OptionsCity and Object Trading
- The whys and hows of the acquisitions
- How will the brands merge together going forward?
- Is the smaller, fragmented community cause for concern?
- Was there much of an overlap between Vela and Object Trading?
- When will the whole platform come together?
- Is there more to come?
Mark is joined by Mead Welles, Co-Founder, Chairman and Treasurer of A Leg to Stand On (ALTSO). Mead is also the Founder and CEO of Octagon Asset Management, LLC
They discuss:
- What is ALTSO?
- Rocktoberfest 2017 is October 5 at City Winery
- How did it all start?
- What surprises are in store for this year?
- How do the Chicago and New York events differ?
- Any plans for additions to the schedule?
- New York event is October 26 at the Hard Rock Cafe in Time's Square
- What are ALTSO's business practices?
- How has technology helped ALTSO meet their goals?
About ALTSO: A Leg To Stand On ("ALTSO") is a non-profit organization providing free orthopedic care including prosthetic limbs, orthotic devices, mobility aids, corrective surgery and rehabilitative care to children in the developing world. Its mission is to offer children who have lost their limbs in traumatic accidents or suffer from congenital disabilities the physical capabilities to access the opportunities and self-esteem earned through education, work and mobility. The net proceeds raised at the events will benefit ALTSO's programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America. For more information on the charity or events, visit ALTSO's website at altso.org.
In this episode, Mark is joined by Arthur Bass, Managing Director Fixed Income Financing, Futures, and Rates at Wedbush.
They discuss:
- Arthur's backgroun in the finance space
- The recent Fed meeting, no big surprises there
- Good employment numbers and low inflation...where do we go from here?
- Will it be a policy error to continue increasing rates
- Is there too much information coming from the Fed?
- The Wedbush growth, including KCG, Crossland and EFutures acquisitions
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Greg Stevens, Vice President of Product Development for Options at Fidelity.
They discuss:
- Greg's winding path through the derivatives space
- Fidelity's performance in Options Broker Madness
- Fidelity is so much more than just 401k
- Three ways to play: mobile, web, and Active Trader Pro
- Trader tools, including back-testers
- Commissions, margins, and price improvement
- Excelling at customer service
- Does Fidelity offer a virtual trading platform?
- The resurgence of back-testing
- More tools for happy options traders
- Idea generation/trade recommendations
- Investing in the mobile experience
- Charging to close shorts?
- Price improvement: the voodoo of order routing?
- The decline in options volume
- What happened to minis?
- Auctions: yea or nay?
Recorded live at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Eric Cott, Director of Advisor Education, and Emily Sweet, Senior Analyst at Cerulli Associates.
They discuss:
- Merging the Options Industry Conference and the Financial Advisor Conference
- The survey Cerulli Associates did for the OIC on financial advisors
- Surprising findings from the survey
- Downside protection, hedging, and other ways larger advisors are using options
- How many advisors participated in the survey
- When there is a dedicated CIO, there is more use of options
- Improving professional trading tools
- How many advisors aren't comfortable talking about options with clients?
- Options as a counterpoint to the robo advisor
- What about the advisors who previously used options but stopped?
- The client influence on options is hard to quantify
Recorded live at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Joe Corso, Senior Vice President of Active Trader at E*Trade and Steve Claussen, Vice President and Chief Investment Strategist of Options House.
They discuss:
- The details of the merger of the platforms
- How will things change for OH clients?
- Don't forget about the futures
- Feedback from customers on getting out of positions
- Why is volume down?
- The importance of education
- How does the industry address the market maker situation?
- The growing concentration of liquidity across a few names
- Moving towards sector and industry ETFs
- Millennials in the marketplace
Recorded live at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Barry Star, CEO at Wall Street Horizon
They discuss:
- Barry's background in options
- What is Wall Street Horizon?
- Who uses Wall Street Horizon?
- Finding alpha in moving earnings dates
- The types of volatility related to the timing of earnings releases
- How do they get it so right?
- The impact of social media
- Don't trade on bad data
- What are the Wall Street Horizon price points?
- Which brokers do they work with?
Recorded live (to tape) at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Peter Maragos, Co-Founder and CEO of Dash Financial Technologies.
They discuss:
- His background in the financial space
- What does Dash do?
- Joining forces with Liquidpoint
- Having all the right solutions
- Will trading floors come back?
- The shrinking pool of liquidity providers
- Modernizing the markets
- Where is the incremental value in multiple exchanges?
- Reaching out to new customers
- Huge volume in fewer names
Recorded live at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Shelly Brown, Executive Vice President of Business Strategy at the Miami Options Exchange.
They discuss:
- Rolling out the second exchange for the group
- How are the early numbers on Pearl?
- Playing with fees and managing flow
- What are the points of differentiation for the MIAX exchange group?
- What can the marketplace do to spur volume?
- Should the minis make a comeback?
- The need for public education
- How to incent market makers to come back to the fold?
- The concentration of liquidity in just a few names
- Predatory traders taking over flow
- Auctions: pro or con?
Recorded live (to tape) at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by JJ Kinahan, Chief Market Strategist at TD Ameritrade.
They discuss:
- The merger with Scottrade
- Where did the volume go?
- Is there a tax put under the market?
- Is the VIX working?
- Getting millennials into options
- Maximizing the mobile experience
- What can we do with stocks that are too expensive?
Recorded live (to tape) at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Jen Nayar, CEO of Vela Trading Technologies.
They discuss:
- Her history in the trading technology space
- What does Vela do?
- What is Vela doing to make market data accessible?
- The trend of bespoke data
- Keeping one eye on potential competitors
- The myriad reasons for the slow adoption of cloud-based platforms
- Enhanced data feeds
- What are conference highlights?
- The proliferation of exchanges
Recorded live at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Rob Brogan Vice President of Equity Derivative Services at Flextrade
They discuss:
- What's going on at Flextrade?
- What does Flextrade do, and who is their typical end-user?
- What are they doing to counteract the trend of liquidity providers leaving the industry?
- Optimal data presentation: API or no?
- Major trends: cloud, mobile, hosted solutions
- What are highlights from the conference?
- Complex order books and the communication gap
Recorded live at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Kapil Rathi, Senior Vice President of Options Business Development at CBOE.
They discuss:
- What is Kapil's role at CBOE since the merger?
- How will the four options exchanges fit together?
- Thinking outside of the box
- Is he pro or con on auctions?
- The pressure on liquidity providers
- Complex order books and getting them to communicate with each other
- Innovations coming from CBOE
Recorded live at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Matt Amberson, Principal and Founder of ORATS
They discuss:
- His history in the options industry
- Unique gamma scalping applications for each underlying
- Is there a secret sauce to options backtesting?
- Forward testing backtesting
- Creating your own signals
- Getting RIAs to use options in their portfolios
- Getting past the gatekeepers
- What are the biggest requests they receive for backtesting
- Ongoing concentration of liquidity in just a few names
- Does exchange fragmentation perpetuate the liquidity crisis?
- Auctions: pro or con?
Recorded live at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Kevin Kennedy, Senior Vice President and Head of US Options at Nasdaq.
They discuss:
- Updates from the launch of the new PHLX trading floor
- Attracting more complex orders
- Will this spark a new floor revolution?
- How many exchanges are too many exchanges?
- The growing importance of complex order books
- Integrating the six exchanges together
- The trend towards passive investments
- Growing the pie
- Attracting new market participants
- Outreach efforts, especially with regard to education
- The concentration of liquidity in just a few names
- Leveraging the interest in ETFs into interest in ETF options
- The debate on auctions
- What can the industry do to safeguard market makers
Live (to tape) from the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Cathy Clay, Global Head of Information Solutions at Multi Asset Solutions Group.
They discuss:
- What comprises the Multi Asset Solutions Group?
- The move from San Francisco to Chicago
- The CBOE/Bats integration
- What is on the radar for the Multi Asset Solutions Group?
- The upcoming release of the volatility data suite through the Data Shop
- What LiveVol Pro upgrades can users expect?
- The shift from Flash to HTML5
- The addition of futures to the platform
- What is the Data Shop and how is it being used?
In this episode, Mark is live (to tape) at the 2017 Options Industry Conference. He is joined by Jack Boyle, Vice President of Broker-Dealer Services at optionsXpress.
They discuss:
- What does the vice president of broker-dealer services do?
- Updates on merging the trading platforms
- Reviewing commission structures
- What is behind the dhanges in the retail space
- The impact of low volatility
- The need for options education
- Expanding outreach
- Upgrades to the trading platform
- Mobile access
- Is there more broker M&A to be had?
When Mark was at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, he was able to interview several industry leaders. In this episode, he is joined by Aash Vyas, Director of Portfolio Strategy and Overlays, Swan Global Investments.
They discuss:
- Big picture takeaways from the conference
- Integrating the needs of financial advisors into the program
- What are the objections to using options for RIAs?
- The impact of millennials on the options space
- The two sides of the political spectrum
- The concentration of volume in a few names
Mark recently attended the 2017 Options Industry Conference, where he was joined by Craig Donohue, Executive Chairman and CEO of the Options Clearing Corporation.
They discuss:
- What brought Craig back to derivatives and The OCC?
- The evolution of OCC into regulatory and oversight roles
- Craig's history with leading large transformations within existing companies
- The possiblility of rolling back regulations
- Migrating other products to central counterparty clearing
- The difference between regulated and unregulated derivatives
- The fight to allow listed options in IRAs and other regulatory struggles
- What are the origin for leaving options off the list?
- What is on his radar for the future?
- Potential taxation implications with transaction taxes and more
- How many exchanges are too many exchanges?
- The concentration of liquidity in a few names
- The need for investor education
In this episode, Mark is joined by Dylan Ratigan.
You may be familiar with Dylan from:
- Being Chief Skeptic at Tastytrade
- Bloomberg News where he is the global managing editor
- CNBC where he created many programs you're probably familiar with, including Fast Money
- MSNBC where he hosted the Dylan Rattigan Show (MSNBC's highest-rated program outside of prime time from 2009 - 2012)
- Co-founder of Helical Holdings
- Political commentary work with the Young Turks
- His book, Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry
They discuss:
- Covering the 2008 financial crisis in real-time
- The role in financial media in the lead-up and aftermath of the financial crisis
- Who is responsible for the financial crisis?
- Resigning from Fast Money and going to MSNBC
- President Obama's missed opportunity
- His book, Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry
- Will he write another book?
- His thoughts on the Trump administration's tax policy
- What would he tax instead of income?
- Are we heading toward an American oligarchy?
- How does he feel about transaction taxes?
- What is Helical Holdings, and how did he become involved?
- How his travel for Helical has changed his worldview
- How can people get involved? (Visit the website)
- His role with Tastytrade
- Is he an options guy?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Kevin Ott, Co-President of Lightspeed Trading.
They discuss:
- Lightspeed winning the Options Insider Broker Madness trophy
- Their road to victory
- Will exchanges be next? We only need one more!
- What is new at Lightspeed?
- Who is their target audience?
- How are they finding new clients?
- The need for options education
In this episode, Mark is joined by Kevin Kennedy, Senior Vice President and Head of U.S. Options at Nasdaq.
They discuss:
- Everything old is new again: new PHLX trading floor opens
- Why update a physical trading floor?
- Fifteen legs!
- Smaller footprint, larger impact
- Happy 227th anniversary!
- What products are available?
- What has the response been from the industry?
- Strong marketshare on the PHLX
- What's next for Nasdaq?
- Is six exchanges enough for Nasdaq?
- Education outreach efforts
- Is there a visitors gallery for the new floor?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Sterling Trading Tech's President Jim Nevotti and Ravi Jain, Director of Risk & Derivatives.
They discuss:
- What is Sterling Trading Tech?
- The Sterling Trading Tech platform
- The delineation of Lightspeed and Sterling Trading Tech
- The LiveVol acquisition, and what remained at CBOE
- What are future plans for the platform?
- Who is the target audience?
- Sterling Trader and Sterling Trader Elite
- Exchange fragmentation
- Options BrokerMadness
Today Mark is joined by Paul Jiganti, Managing Director at IMC.
They discuss:
- Paul's history in the options industry
- What is IMC?
- What is an options wholesaler?
- How IMC helps lower the barrier to entry
- Fighting to give the best price to the end user
- Taking a dive into the Flash Boys rabbit hole
- The evolving regulatory environment
- Incentivizing liquidity
- The perfect hedge
- And more
Today, Mark is joined by Tony Saliba, Managing Director of Saliba Venture Management.
He discusses:
- His forthcoming book, Managing Expectations: Driving Profitable Option Trading Outcomes through Knowledge, Discipline, and Risk Management
- How did Tony end up in the first Market Wizards book?
- How are things with entering the Chinese options market?
- Is this the moment that the Chinese options market will take off?
- The Chicago Stock Exchange acquisiton
- The Dash-Liquidpoint Merger
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by JJ Kinahan, Chief Market Strategist at TD Ameritrade. They discuss:
- The forthcoming Scottrade merger
- Was the options business a key driver in the merger?
- What is the timeline for the deal?
- What are the new things on the docket for TD Ameritrade?
- Social analysis and trading opportunities
- Adding futures options to the platform
- JJ's book, Essential Options Strategies
- JJ takes on the question of the week
In this episode, Mark is joined by Villi Iltchev of August Capital
They discuss:
- Villi's background in the fintech space
- What is August Capital?
- What are the barriers to entry in the fintech space?
- Success breeds success
- The market data albatross
- The life of the venture capitalist
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Morgan Housel of the Collaborative Fund.
They discuss:
- What is the Collaborative Fund?
- Morgan's former career in journalism and private equity/investment banking
- Bringing diverse backgrounds under one roof
- Should there be full disclosure on fees?
- Overwhelming market data fees
- Innovation versus regulation
- Taking the long-term view
- The future of financial advising
In this episode Mark is joined by Geoff Sharp, Managing Dierector and Head of Sales for the Eris Exchange.
They discuss:
- What is the Eris Exchange?
- What are Eris standards?
- U.S. dollar interest rate swaps: what are they? How are they used?
- What are swap futures?
- What are the advantages of a swap future ofver a standard OTC swap?
- What is Eris' plan to break the OTC cabal?
- Who are using these products?
- What is the Eris secret sauce?
- What is Eris doing in the platform/technology space to attract customers?
- You can find more information on the Eris website
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jeff Joseph Publisher of Modern Trader Magazine and Managing Partner of Prescient Capital Partners. They discuss:
- RIAs, are they mostly style over substance?
- Being early adopters of alternative investments
- The metamorphasis from Traders Magazine to Modern Trader
- Differentiation within the RIA space
- The decision to acquire a print publication
- Calling out the talking heads
- Filtering out the noise
- Partnering on Stocktoberfest
In this episode, Mark is joined by Kevin Kennedy Vice President and Head of U.S. Options at NASDAQ. They discuss:
- The NASDAQ acquisition of ISE
- What drove the merger?
- Will there still be six exchanges after the ink has dried?
- The new deal on the street: CBOE + BATS
- An intelligent auction process
- The ultimate auction: Open Outcry?
- And more
In this episode Mark is joined by Kapil Rathi, Senior Vice President of Options Business Strategy at BATS Global Markets.
They discuss:
- The forthcoming deal with CBOE
- What the deal has to offer investors?
- What were the drivers for the deal?
- What does this mean for options market share?
- When is the deal expected to close?
- What does Kapil think of ISE becoming part of the NASDAQ group?
- What else is happening at BATS, especially the BAM auctions?
- Are auctions hurting the market?
- What do ETFs bring to the BATS ecosystem?
In this episode Mark is joined by Jerry Hanweck, CEO and Founder of Hanweck Associates.
They discuss:
- What does Hanwek Associates do?
- What the heck are GPUs?
- Why are they so great for options?
- Analytics as a service
- Bringing margin into the 21st century
- Portfolio margining pre- and post-trade
- New developments at Hanweck
- Want to learn more? Check out the Hanweck website
Today Mark is joined by Mead Welles, founder and CEO of Octagon Asset Management. He's also the co-founder and treasurer of ALTSO.
He discusses:
- How he started Octagon
- What is ALTSO?
- How did he get involved with this cause?
- What does ALTSO do?
- Visit thieir website to find out more about ALTSO
- Want to go to Rocktoberfest on October 6? Buy tickets here.
Today, Mark is joined by Brian Liston, co-founder of the Seed Commodity eXchange (CX)
They discuss:
- What is Seed CX?
- The perils of opening a new derivatives exchange
- How are they going to make a trade-able/list-able hemp product?
- Understanding the hemp industry and translating that into commodities
- Filling the gap left by corn and soy
- Finding funding in Chicago
- And more...
Today, Mark is joined by Tony Saliba, Managing Director of Saliba Venture Management.
They discuss:
- Bringing options trading expertise to the Chinese market
- Tony's newest book: Managing Expectations: Driving Profitable Option Trading Outcomes through Knowledge, Discipline, and Risk Management
- Are the practicalities of options trading being lost?
- Diving in the history of options trading with a focus on a Chinese audience
- Employing the "staying alive" principle
- The slow roll-out of options trading in China
- Are covered calls unnecessarily favored?
- Educating the regulators
- The tsunami of interest in options from China
In this episode, Mark is Joined by Joe Halpern, CEO of Exceed Investments. They discuss:
- What is Exceed Investments?
- Where does Exceed focus its attention?
- The different types of funds Exceed offers
- Working with advisors to use options
- The use of options in IRAs
- What is coming up from Exceed?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Kevin Ott, the Co-President of Lightspeed. They discuss:
- What is Lightspeed? Who is the target audience?
- What differentiates Lightspeed from their competitors?
- Lightspeed mobile
- After-hours trading
- How many exchanges is too many exchanges?
- The crowding of the retail brokerage space
- Wooing desirable clients
- What's coming up from Lightspeed?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Eric Cott, Director of Advisor Education at the Options Industry Council. They discuss:
- The OIC Financial Advisor Forum
- Why the focus on ETFs?
- Giving advisors actionable information
- Using options without even knowing it
- Regulation of using options in IRAs
- The latest Harris Poll study, spoored by the OIC
- Options for Advisors resources on the OIC website
- Perceptions of options by advisors
- The rise of the robo advisor
- Talking to clients in a language they understand
- What's coming from the OIC?
Coming to you live from the 2016 OIC Conference, Mark is joined by Catherine Clay, Vice President of Business Development for CBOE LiveVol. They discuss:
- Becoming part of the CBOE family
- What is LiveVol?
- What is the Data Shop?
- What was the driver to create the Data Shop?
- Where is the demand for data going forward?
- What does LiveVol have to offer for surveillance?
Coming to you live from the 2016 OIC Conference, Mark is catching up with all the usual suspects to bring you the latest options news. In this episode, he is joined by Joe Corso, Senior VP of Brokerage at Options House. They discuss:
- What are the new developments at Options House?
- What is going on with the Otions House mobile app?
- Moblie charting
- Idea generation
- What about futures and futures options?
- New entries into the options brokerage space
- After hours trading: pros and cons
- How many exchanges are too many exchanges?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Bill Looney, Head of CBOE New York.
They discuss:
- Recent developments happening at CBOE
- Options volume
- Navigating the waters of listing new products, including MSCI and FTSE
- The Options Institute expansion into Asia
- Expanded hours for SPX and VIX options
- The plight of liquidity providers
- Exchanges: how many are too many?
- Price improvement auctions
- Monday expirations
In this episode, Mark is joined by David Beth, President and COO of WallachBeth.
They discuss:
- The genesis of WallachBeth
- What is happening in the ETF space?
- Levered versus regular ETFs
- The continued expansion of the exchange space and the resulting impact on WallachBeth clients
- Price improvement auctions
- The adoption (or lack thereof) of options in the advisor space
In this episode, Mark is joined by JJ Kinahan, Managing Director at TD Ameritrade.
They discuss:
- What's new at TD from an options perspective?
- The mobile experience
- What's happening in futures options?
- The importance of understanding risk
- Developments in the brokerage space in general
- Outreach efforts, including the next generation of investors
Mark Sebastian was live at the 2016 CBOE Risk Management Conference and wasn't afraid to talk about it. Today, he's talking to Satoshi Iwanaga, Chairman of Eurekahedge
They discuss:
- What is Eurekahedge?
- Trends in the hedge fund space
- Returns from bigger versus smaller firms
- Investment and capital flows
- And more
We are back with roving reporter Mark Sebastian who was live at the 2016 CBOE Risk Management Conference. Today, he's talking to James Koutoulas, CEO of Typhon
They discuss:
- What does Typhon have to offer clients?
- What are their specialities?
- The volatility space in general
- The dynamic approach to trading volatility
- Vol products versus ag products in the CTA space
- Allocations
- How to work with CTAs
In this episode, our roving reporter Mark Sebastian is on assignment at the CBOE Risk Management Conference, where he sat down with Ben Londergan, Executive Managing Director, Head of Options Trading and Technology for Convergex
They discuss:
- Less liquidity, greater concentration levels
- Dilenation between on-floor and off-floor liquidity
- Institutional money coming into the options market
- How will pension money impact the market in the next few years?
- Did the elevated VIX change client behaviors?
- Holding onto versus selling volatility
- What is Convergex doing for low-latency spread trades?
- What else is going on at Convergex?
- And more
In this episode, our roving reporter Mark Sebastian is on assignment at the CBOE Risk Management Conference, where he sat down with Pat Fay from FTSE Russell Indexes.
They discuss:
- Exploration of ETFs/ETNs based on various strategies
- Relative value trading; RUT vs. SPX
- FTSE 100 & FTSE China 50 futures contract at CME
- Cash options products coming soon at CBOE
- Where should Russell put its index efforts?
- New developments at FTSE and Russell
Today, Mark is joined by Ilya Feygin live from the CBOE Risk Management Conference. They discuss:
- Ilya's experience in the options space
- The days before VIX was a trade-able product / volatility as an asset class
- What is the WallachBeth Scout Group?
- Threat evaluation, risk management, and execution reviews
- The right strategies for the right enviroments
- How to be adaptable in a way that is accessible to various asset managers
- The recent flight to safety
- Is exchange fragmentation impacting liquidity?
In this episode, Mark is joined by Lee Clifford, founder and CEO of the GRID Trade Network
They discuss:
- What are Symbol Master and GRID Trade?
- The huge number of orders that are not not communicated securely
- What does GRID Trade and GRID Pod bring to the table?
- Participating in GRID Pod conversations
- The compliance aspect
- And more
Options Insider Radio Interviews: Sorting through the Mass of Data with RB Trader
In this episode, Mark is joined by Tim Biggam, Senior Advisor at RB Trader
They discuss:
- Tim's history in the financial space
- What is RB Trader?
- Who is the RB Trader audience?
- The degree of customization from the RB Trader platform
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Peter Hauser, Managing Director of TradeLegs
They discuss:
- What is TradeLegs?
- How does TradeLegs work?
- Who is the target customer for the TradeLegs platform?
- The misperceptions about options
- How are new adoptees using the TradeLegs platform?
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Henry Schwartz, major Duomo at TradeAlert. Henry is wearing a different hat today, though, and talking about WhatsTrading.com
They discuss:
- What is whatstrading.com?
- Who is the intended audience for whatstrading.com?
- Getting information vs. getting information in context
- Bells and whistles of whatstrading.com
- And more
In this episode, Mark chats with Paul Giedraitis, Principal and Co-Founder of Neurensic.
They discuss:
- Paul’s background in the financial space
- What is Neurensic?
- Who is Neurensic’s ideal customer?
- Why is spoofing so prevalent these days?
- And more
In this episode, Mark chats with John Dempsey, President of OptionScape.
They discuss:
- John’s background in the industry
- What is OptionScape?
- Who are OptionScape customers?
- What are the benefits of OptionScape?
- Why is OptionScape reaching out to trader educators?
- And much more
In this episode, Mark chats with Nick Howard, Creator of QuikStrike and Founder of Bantix Technologies.
They discuss:
- The genesis of QuikStrike
- What does QuikStrike do?
- Everything you can’t find, all in one place
- The partnership with CME Group
- And much more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ilan Azbel, founder and CEO of Delkos Research.
They discuss:
- The origins of Delkos Research, and what they do
- Their push with FCMs
- Their two-tiered value proposition
- The third party compliance solution
- Delkos news and upcoming events
Register today to join Mark, Ilan, and others at the third annual Options Alliance Conference.
In this episode, Mark is joined by Steve Crutchfield, Vice President and Head of Options Markets, ETPs and Bonds at NYSE/ICE.
They discuss:
- System upgrades to the AMEX options floor
- Doubling down on trading floors
- The plight of the liquidity providers
- Overall volume decline
- When will the birds (binary options on single stocks) fly?
- Any plans to augment mix of venues?
- And more…
In this episode, Mark is joined by Christian Nentwich, co-founder and CEO of Duco.
They discuss:
- An overview of Christian's background and how he started Duco
- What is Duco? What do they do?
- How did they end up with the du.co domain?
- The Cube: a simple solution to big challenges
- What is their biggest competition? Excel.
- Benefits and features of their web-based platform
- 700,000,000 lines of data reconciled in the last year with no latency
- The importance of accurate reporting
- Working outside of the financial services industry
- Are they seeing a boom or a bust in financial technology spending?
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jeromee Johnson, Head of Options at BATS
They discuss:
Increasing market share for BATS
- Recent developments, including BATS 2
- The decline in options volume
- Where can the growth come from?
- The plight of the market makers
- The OCC capital plan
- And more
Options Insider Radio Interviews: Talking Attracting Liquidity Providers with BOX
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ed Boyle, CEO of BOX
They discuss:
- The changing landscape of the marketplace
- Why is volume dry lately?
- The decline in institutional volume
- Regulation
- New products, including Jumbo SPY
- The partnership with VolX
- Adding a new exchange
- Attracting liquidity providers
- After hours options trading
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Shelly Brown, Senior Vice President of MIAX.
They discuss:
- The lead up to launching MIAX
- The MIAX value proposition
- The competition for the NBBO
- Record volume numbers
- The cost of entry into the options business: Strategic Partnerships
- A possible equity exchange
- Getting into the volatility space
- After-hours options trading
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Michael McClain, President and Chief Operating officer at The OCC.
They discuss:
- Michael’s history at The OCC
- New initiatives at The OCC, including the revisions to their capital plan
- Results of the survey looking at the effectiveness of advertising from OIC
- Volatility
- Dividend trades
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Gary Delaney, Director at the Options Industry Council.
They discuss:
- What does Gary do for OIC in Europe?
- Inescapable regulation
- The OIC study on the use cases for structured products
- European use of ETFs and options based on ETFs
- Self-directed investment in the European market
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ted Bilharz, Director of PULSe Sales at CBOE.
They discuss:
- Ted's history at CBOE
- The lack of liquidity providers
- Hedging strategies
- Weekly options
- Forthcoming VIX weekly options
- CBOE System upgrades
- The latency arms race
- PULSe overview
- The pressure to systemize order flow
- The ongoing UI battle
- After-hours options trading
In this episode, Mark is joined by David Hait, President and Founder of OptionMetrics
They discuss:
- How David came to create OptionMetrics
- How OptionMetrics creates the pricing tools that users need to support in-depth research
- The impact of the evolution of the volatility landscape
- How does OptionMetrics provide the volume of data in a way that is useful for customers?
- Broker use of OptionMetrics data
- Will their data ever be available to the retail community?
- Informed traders trade options
- The OptionMetrics conference featuring academics presenting papers on how they use the data
- Coming soon from OptionMetrics…commodities
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jason Kuruvilla, Senior Manager, and Todd Briggs, Partner, from the McGladrey Financial Services Group.
They discuss:
- How McGladrey works with clients in the financial services industry
- Looking at the tax implications of trading various securities in different jurisdictions
- Pending regulatory issues and the tax and audit concerns about them
- How they keep up with the evolution of the options industry
- What are the primary concerns from their clients?
- The potential impact of the pending legislation regarding programmer registration
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by JJ Kinahan, Chief Market Strategist at TD Ameritrade.
They discuss:
- JJ's background in the options industry
- Highlights of the TD Ameritrade platform
- Platform upgrades
- How to avoid backtesting in a vacuum
- The Tradefinder application
- The Sizzle Index
- What is driving the decrease in volume
- After hours liquidity
- The rise in the use of futures and futures options
- The push towards APIs
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ben Londergan, Executive Managing Director of Options Trading and Technology at ConvergeX.
They discuss:
- Ben's history in the options industry
- An overview of what NXP does and how it interacts with so much order flow throughout the day
- ConvergeX's multiple flow options
- The most popular of ConvergeX algos
- Portfolio margin tools
- The problem of attracting new market makers
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jason Lichten, Director of Equity and Listed Derivatives Trading Strategies from Wolverine Execution Services.
They discuss:
- Jason's take on Flash Boys and how RBC was portrayed (RBC is his former firm)
- What is Wolverine and what do they do?
- Market transparency in the equity and options markets
- Consolidation and simplification of the options market structure
- The cycle of market and liquidity fragmentation
- After-hours options trading
- What’s coming from WEX in the near future?
Options Insider Interviews: Talking PACs, CTAs, and More with RCM Alternatives
In this episode, Mark is joined by Bobby Schwartz, CEO of RCM Alternatives
They discuss:
- What are all the areas of RCM Alternatives?
- The acquisition of Attain Captial
- Outreach to CTAs and hedge funds
- CME PAC
- What else is coming from RCM Alternatives?
- And more…
Options Insider Interviews: Talking Realized Volatility with VolX
In this episode, Mark is joined by Bob Krause, CEO of VolX, the Volatility Exchange.
They discuss:
- Updates on what is happening at VolX
- Looking at realized, not implied, volatility products
- The deal with BOX
- Enduring the regulatory process
- Trading realized volatility, with specifics
- Specifications and margins will mirror those of the VIX, with two significant differences: settlement and expiration date
- The possibility of listing on more products
- And more
In this episode of Options Insider Interviews, Mark is joined by Pat Fay, Director of Global Derivatives at Russell.
They discuss:
- New volume records in Russell options
- The spread between Russell options and other benchmarks
- Who is using RVX options?
- The merger with the LSE
- The case for an exclusive listing
- And more
In this episode of Options Insider Interviews, Mark is joined by Gary Katz, CEO of the International Securities Exchange.
They discuss:
- The third addition to the ISE family, ISE Mercury
- The use case for a third exchange
- Simplifying the exchange space, point and counterpoint
- Litigation with CBOE
- Technological advancements to mitigate risk and facilitate execution
- The role of the OCC in regulation and risk control
- The new ISE CyberSecurity Index
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Exploring the Mysteries of Margin with DTCC
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ted Leveroni, Executive Director of Strategy at DTCC
They discuss:
- Ted’s background in the financial industry
- What is DTCC?
- How does DTCC differ from OCC?
- The joint venture with Euroclear
- The complexities of movement of margin and collateral
- Improvements to the settlement process
- Margin questions
- And more
Mark Sebastian recently attended the CBOE Risk Management Conference and brought along an audio recorder. In this edition, he caught up with Ben Londergan, Executive Managing Director and Head of Options Trading and Technology at Convergex.
They discuss:
- The landscape of the exchange space
- Fragmentation of liquidity, and the resulting quotes
- Navigating the best execution landscape for their customers
- How does the market fragmentation impact liquidity providers
- The death of trading floors
- Balancing great customer service and a good price
Options Insider Interviews: Catching Up with Andy Nybo
Mark Sebastian recently attended the CBOE Risk Management Conference and brought along an audio recorder. Here’s his interview with Andy Nybo Head of Derivatives at the TABB Group.
They discuss:
- Where is liquidity going?
- Where are the weaknesses in liquidity?
- Multiple exchanges and two models
- Does fragmentation help retail traders?
- Are asset managers less commission sensitive than before?
- What else do they see coming?
- Is there an appetite for a weekly VIX contract?
- And more…
In this episode of Options Insider Radio Special Events, we sent Mark Sebastian on assignment to the CBOE’s 31st annual Risk Management Conference. He took an audio recorder with him and interviews ensued. This one is with Jason Ferrell, Managing Director at Gateway Partners.
They discussed:
- What is Gateway Partners?
- What causes a red flag between the trading desk and the risk desk?
- How have regulatory changes impacted their work?
- What products produce the most need for their help?
- What he thinks will drive business going forward
Mark Sebastian was at the CBOE’s Risk Management Conference and he brought an audio recorder. Today’s feature is a discussion with Berlinda Liu, Director of Research & Development at S&P Dow Jones Indexes.
They discuss:
- Parallel versus twisting moves in volatility futures
- Possible reasons for a move towards parallel shifts
- The S&P 500
In this episode, Mark is joined by Steve Crutchfield, Head of U.S. Options at NYSE.
They discuss:
- The integration with ICE from an options perspective
- ICE Chat: message-based order tickets and execution
- Fragmentation of liquidity in the options space
- Penny pilot program: is it time to retire it?
- Technological failures: are they related to fragmentation?
- When do the benefits outweigh the risks for adding new trading venues
- The little-discussed aspects of Flash Boys
- The reasons mini options are failing
Options Insider Radio: A Year in the Life at BATS
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jeromee Johnson, Vice President of Market Development and Head of Options at the BATS Exchange.
They discuss:
- A year in the life of the BATS Exchange
- BATS + Direct Edge
- Where are growth opportunities?
- Will there be a second BATS options exchange?
- Complexity and fragmentation, and the consequences thereof
- What happens if exchanges offered different levels of pricing?
- Flash Boys and the myriad mentions of the BATS Exchange
- And much, much more
Options Insider Radio: Talking When to Trade, and When Not to, with Hedgeable
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mike Kane, co-founder of Hedgeable.
They discuss:
- What is Hedgeable?
- What sets them apart?
- The perception of options
- Their reactive approach to the market
- Capturing the upside, avoiding the downside
- How they use no market timing or predictions
- Their programs for customers
- Who are their clients, and where are they coming from?
- And more…
In this episode, Mark is joined by Joy Rosenstein, Derivatives Business Development Manager at Fidessa.
They discuss:
- The latest developments at Fidessa
- Automation of trading systems
- The Fragulator
- Migratory order flow and fee schedules
- Retail trading platforms
- SEFs and the swaps space
- Joy's take on Flash Boys
- And more
In this episode, Mark is joined by Dan Sacks from Actant.
They discuss:
- What is Actant?
- Who uses it?
- The value-added services Actant provides
- What is top of mind for new Actant clients?
- Regulatory initiatives, risk management, and the race to zero
- Cost effective order flow routing
- The partnership with LiquidPoint
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Talking Vega Blocks, Complex Spreads and Delta Hedges with Flextrade
In this episode, Mark is joined by Rob Brougan, Vice President of option sales at FlexTrade.
They discuss:
- What FlexTrade does, and who their clients are
- Their volatility-oriented products
- How customers are using their vol products
- Rob’s reaction to Flash Boys
- Mini options and the lack of adoption
- What’s on Rob’s radar?
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Talking Spreads, Cancel Fees, and the Death of Minis with ISE
In this episode, Mark is joined by Gary Katz, CEO of ISE.
They discuss:
- The addition of Gemini to the ISE family
- The unintended consequences of market expansion
- What happens when technology fails?
- Technology’s impact on spread orders
- Flash Boys
- The history of payment for order flow
- Mini options
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: The Secretive World of Options Symbology
In this episode, Mark is joined by Lee Clifford, Owner & President of Symbol Master, and Mark Woolfenden, Managing Director of FOW Trade Data.
They discuss:
- What is Symbol Master and FOW Trade Data?
- How they create a clean data feed
- Who are their clients?
- Determining the impact of corporate actions on symbology
- Multiple exchanges, OPRA feed, and futures symbols
- Technology failures
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: Talking Tools, Tech and Idea Generation with Tradelegs
In this episode, Mark is joined by Gideon Agar, the CEO of Tradelegs.
They discuss:
- Tradelegs background
- Who uses Tradelegs
- Idea generation
- Trading tools
- Their work with CBOE
- The demystification of options
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: Tables Are Turned on Brian Overby
In this episode, the host becomes the guest as Mark is joined by Brian Overby, host of Options Playbook Radio, who also happens to be Trade King’s Senior Options Analyst.
They discuss:
- The Zecco merger
- Fostering the Trade King community
- Brian’s take on Flash Boys
- Failure of mini options to take off
- Fragmentation of liquidity
- And more...
Options Insider Radio: Talking Jumbos, Minis and HFT with BOX
In this episode, Mark is joined by by Ed Boyle, Executive Vice President of Strategy at the BOX Exchange.
They discuss:
- Technology updates at BOX
- Consequences of the fragmentation of the market
- Jumbo SPY
- Minis reducing efficiency
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: More Flash Boys, Market Fairness, and the Nth Exchange with Tony Saliba
In this episode, Mark is joined by Tony Saliba, Executive Managing Director of ConvergEx Group and CEO of Liquidpoint.
They discuss:
- More Flash Boys
- Financial interests in options markets
- The Nth Exchange
- and more...
Options Insider Radio: Talking Pennies, Payment and Flash Boys with Tony Saliba
In this episode, Mark is joined by Tony Saliba, Executive Managing Director of ConvergEx Group and CEO of Liquidpoint.
They discuss:
- Their algorithm which optimizes where complex orders are sent
- Exchanges, spread books, and fragmentations
- Should exchanges be required to provide kill switches?
- Getting rid of penny-wide spreads
- Tony’s opinion on Flash Boys
OIC 2014: A Deep Dive into the State of the Industry with Andy Nybo
Mark is joined by Andy Nybo, Head of Derivatives Research at TABB Group.
They discuss:
- The use of U.S. listed options by European investors
- Growing demand for ETF options
- The insatiable appetite for VIX
- The state of the industry, including rising volumes, muted uptick in vol, and mini options
- Pending AAPL split
- Market structure
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: Talking Cool Tech, Failed Products and Flash Boys with TD Ameritrade
In this episode, Mark is joined by Paul Jiganti, Managing Director of Market Structure and Client Advocacy at TD Ameritrade.
They discuss:
- TD tools for buy-writes
- TD and TOS becoming the platform of choice for investors
- Tools for advisors
- The double-edged sword of fragmentation
- Retail customers aren’t concerned about market structure
- The criticisms from Flash Boys
- The idea of a retail-only exchange
- Failed retail-oriented products
- And more…
OIC 2014: Talking Volatility, Minis, and More with Russell Investments
In this episode of Options Insider Radio, Mark is joined by Pat Fay, the Head of Derivatives for the Index Group at Russell Investments.
They discuss:
- An overview of the Russell initiatives in the options space
- Russell options for retail investors
- An overview of RVX
- Who is the target audience for RVX?
- The prevalence of call trading in RVX
- What’s coming up from Russell?
- Mini options
- And more
Options Insider Radio: SunGard-Valdi Options
In this episode, Mark is joined by Russ Chrusciel, Division Head of SunGard-Valdi Options
They discuss:
- Updates to their product offerings
- Cloud. Cloud. Cloud.
- Cost consciousness within the industry, especially with regard to data processing
- Growth opportunities
- Advisors and asset managers beginning to embrace options
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Sapient Global Markets
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jim Myers, Senior Manager at Sapient Global Markets
They discuss:
- What is Sapeint, and what does it have to offer to investors?
- Regulatory and compliance services
- Data use for market impact analyses
- Efficient ways to manage, hold, and report data
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: Options House CEO George Ruhanna
In this episode, Mark is joined by George Ruhanna, CEO of Options House
They discuss:
- Upgrade progression to the Options House platform
- The focus on security
- Margin, including portfolio margin
- Premium harvesting vs. premium buying
- Market structure and some of the challenges it creates
- Working with advisors
- And more...
Options Insider Radio: Money Block
In this episode Mark is joined by Gary Martino, Vice President of Business Development at Money Block.
They discuss:
- What is Money Block? Its history, customer base, and more.
- Why is Money Block actively pursuing their audience?
- What are the stumbling blocks keeping advisors from embracing options?
- The tools and functionality that Money Block offers advisors
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: The Intellectual Property Exchange, IPXI
In this episode, Mark is joined by Gerard Pannekoek, CEO and President of the Intellectual Property Exchange, IPXI.
They discuss:
- What is IPXI?
- Intellectual property as an asset class
- The monetization of intellectual property, and IPXI’s model to do that
- The commoditization of a patent portfolio using Unit Licensing Rights (ULRs)
- The process IPXI goes through to create ULRs
- And more...
Options Insider Radio: Ed Boyle from BOX Exchange
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ed Boyle, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at BOX Exchange.
They discuss:
- Jumbo SPY and industry reaction to it
- Jumbo SPY settlement and issues around it
- The future of PIP, and auctions in general
- Complex orders and adding functionality to the PIP, or COPIP
- What will it take to execute complex orders across exchanges?
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: RCM Wealth Management
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mike Cavanaugh and Bobby Schwartz, Principals at RCM Wealth Management.
They discuss:
- How RCM can help both retail and institutional clients
- Navigating the futures markets in recent years
- Customer protection measures and restrictive capital requirements
- Generational aspects of leadership in the futures market
- And more
Options Insider Radio: CBOE Futures Exchange
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jay Caauwe, Managing Director of CBOE Futures Exchange.
They discuss:
- Volatility as an asset class
- Diverse audiences embracing VIX futures
- Continued VIX futures record volume
- Expanding trading hours, including the 2:00 a.m. start, mirroring the London opening
- Trading VIX and SPX together
- Moving beyond the “fear gauge”
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Barchart.com
In this episode, Mark is joined by Eero Pickat, President and co-owner of Barchart.com
They discuss:
· The history of Barchart.com
· Barchart.com’s point of entry for options traders
· Barchart.com’s niche sites
· Trends in what retail customers need
· Institutional presence
· And more
Options Insider Radio: KCG Capital
In this episode, Mark is joined by Carl Gilmore, CEO of KCG Capital.
They discuss:
- The genesis of KCG Capital
- The businesses within KCG Capital
- Futures industry drama from the last few years
- Is the FCM model broken?
- Is the self-regulation model broken?
- KCG’s focus on customer service
- And more....
Options Insider Radio: NYSE Options
In this episode, Mark is joined by Steve Crutchfield, Executive Vice President and head of U.S. Options at NYSE.
They discuss:
· Merger mania, and how will NYSE Options be impacted
· Dividend trades and proposed OCC regulations
· SEC allegations against OCC
· Market fragmentation
· Penny pilot
· And more
Options Insider Radio: Object Trading
In this episode, Mark is joined by Steve Woodyatt, CEO, and Dan Hubscher, Director of Marketing at Object Trading.
They discuss:
· How Object Trading came to be
· Direct market access through Front Runner
· Their research report on how markets actually innovate
· Integrating best-of-breed tools into trading platforms
· And more
Options Insider Radio: Tera Exchange
In this episode, Mark is joined by Lennie Nuara, President and co-founder of the Tera Exchange.
They discuss:
- The genesis of the Tera Exchange
- The SEF market, counterparty risk, and how mandatory clearing has changed the marketplace
- What has changed in the marketplace to allow the SEF market to succeed?
- What sets the Tera Exchange apart?
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: Activ Financial
In this episode, Mark is joined by Mike Dunne, CTO of Activ Financial.
They discuss:
- How to take the glut of options data and make it manageable for the end-user
- How to process the tsunami of data in an economically reasonable way
- The sustainability of the growth of data creation
- Speed of access to data, and the shift from the latency issue to security\
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Trading Technologies
In this episode Mark is joined by Rick Lane and Brian Haag from Trading Technologies.
They discuss:
- The genesis of X_TRADER
- Visual feedback of algorithm creation
- Broadening the appeal to a new customer base
- Broadening users beyond traditional options traders
- Challenges that Trading Technologies can help traders mitigate
- What are Trading Technologies’ newest cloud-related initiatives
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Getting Someone to Do Your Trading Homework
In this episode, Mark is joined by Vlad Karpel, founder of Tradespoon.com
They discuss:
- An overview of Tradespoon, and the trade recommendation space in general
- The origin of the name Tradespoon
- Segmentation of trade recommendations
- Auto-trading
- And much more
Options Insider Radio: Are You a Gemini?
Mark is joined by Boris Ilyevsky, the Managing Director of ISE’s Options Exchanges.
They discuss:
- The announcement of the Gemini Exchange
- Why another exchange? Will it help grow the size of the pie?
- If you build it, will they come?
- Getting excited about implied order functionality
- Can we see an NBBO for spreads?
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Data on the Go
In this episode, Mark is joined by Jack Walker, the head of business development at iVolatility.
They discuss:
- iVolatility Lite, the mobile options data application
- Getting the greeks on it, and the evolution of data availability
- You need not be an existing client to use iVolatility Lite, just register online
- Access to the main site on various platforms
- The myriad types of information you can get from iVolatility
Options Insider Radio: View from Washington
In this episode, Mark is joined by Joe Corcoran, Head of Government Relations at the Options Clearning Corporation.
They discuss:
- The impact of proposed mark-to-market legislation on the listed options industry
- Washington's tendency to treat listed derivatives and OTC products in the same manner
- Ways you can have your voices heard on this issue
- And more...
Options Insider Radio: Best Practices for Advisors
In this episode, Mark is joined by Eric Cott, Director of Advisor Initiatives at OIC.
They discuss:
- New developments from OIC in the advsior space
- Key take aways from the OIC best practice study on advisors' use of options
- The ways to approach clients about the use of options
- ETFs versus mutual funds
- And more...
Options Insider Radio: Interview with OX CEO Joe Vietri
In this episode Mark is joined by Joe Vietri, the CEO of OptionsXpress.
They discuss:
- The progress of the Schwab-OptionsXpress integration
- The migration of the OX capabilities to Schwab clients
- Options for use by Schwab RIAs
- Mini options: the hype, the commissions, the future
- The changing landscape in the brokerage arena
- And more…
Options Insider Radio: Fidessa & the Fragulator
In this episode, Mark is joined by Joy Rosenstein, Business Development Manager at Fidessa.
They discuss:
- The Fragulator
- Fidessa's move into the U.S. equity options space
- Order routing
- Managing the ever-changing fee structures
- Exchanges as vendors: partners or competitors?
- Fidessa's value-add
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Talking about Analytics with S3
In this episode, Mark is joined by Terry Flynn and Mark Davies of S3.
They discuss:
- Their early entry in the transaction analytics space, and the explosion of recent interest in transaction analytics
- Managing costs with more effective order routing
- Smart routing, and the decisions that go into creating the calcuations
- Keeping up with fee schedules
- Executing and routing with complex orders
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Russell Investments
In this episode, Mark is joined by Pat Fay, Director of Listed Derivatives at Russell Investments.
They discuss:
- The semi-exclusive listing of Russell Indexes on CBOE and NYSE platforms
- Upcoming derivatives products at Russell
- Opportunities to create new index or volatility products
- Courting the retail investor
- And more
Options Insider Radio: Flexing Trading Muscles with Flextrade
Recorded at OIC 2013, Mark is joined by Rob Brogan, Vice President of Equity Derivative Sales at Flextrade.
They discuss:
- The genesis of Flextrade and what it offers customers
- Flextrade’s ability to help customers create their own algorithms
- What differentiates their execution platform
- Is there a demand for algos within the options space?
- Trends from vendors in terms of what is being offered, and to whom
- And more
Options Insider Radio: LiveVol Live at OIC
Mark is joined by Catherine Clay, Chief Strategy Officer of LiveVol
They discuss:
- LiveVol X, including alpha testing, features, and audience
- The many aspects of LiveVol, including a new RIA platform
- The evolution of the company as well as the industry
- How to reach investment advisors
- LiveVol Pro platform upgrades
- And more
Options Insider Radio: BOX Enters Jumbo SPY Fray
In this episode, Mark is joined by Ed Boyle, Senior Vice President of Strategy at BOX.
They discuss:
- Jumbo SPY contract
- Mini options
- The risks of exclusively listed products
- Weekly options
- And more...
Options Insider Radio: BATS, Moving Forward
In this episode, Mark and co-host Dan Passarelli talk to Jeromee Johnson, Head of BATS Options.
They discuss:
- Past news headlines about BATS, good and bad.
- The tech troubles that caused the failure of the IPO.
- The effects of the CBOE shutdown.
- The semi-exclusive trading of Russell Index products.
- Exchanges as SROs.
- The introduction of mini options and the feedback from retail clientele.
- BATS's cuts in fees for mini options.
- The ongoing debate about Max/Jumbo SPY contracts.
- Upcoming products from BATS.
- And more!
Options Insider Radio: The Acquisition of NYSE
In this episode, Mark talks to Steve Crutchfield, Head of Options at NYSE Euronext
They discuss:
- The status of the merger with ICE.
- The future of options and equity business under ICE.
- The influx of volumes at NYSE Amex.
- The introduction of mini options.
- Liquidity providers and their role in mini options.
- The interest NYSE has in the proposed Max/Jumbo SPY contracts.
- Upcoming products from the NYSE.
- And more!
Options Insider Radio: ISE's New Exchange
In this episode, Mark talks to Gary Katz, CEO of the International Securities Exchange.
They discuss:
- The details about ISE's new exchange "Gemini".
- The ongoing debate about Max/Jumbo SPY contracts.
- The difference between ISE and BOX approach to Max.
- The effects of the CBOE shutdown and the future of exclusivity.
- The semi-exclusive trading of Russell Index products.
- The introduction of mini options.
- Exchanges as SROs.
- Upcoming products from the ISE.
- And more!
In this episode, Mark talks to Ed Provost, Executive VP & Chief Business Development Officer at CBOE.
They discuss:
- The technology problem CBOE experienced last week.
- The potential for people to review CBOE's proprietary products.
- The semi-exclusive trading of Russell Index products.
- Extending the S&P license.
- The attempts to threaten CBOE's SPX excuisivity.
- VIX ETPs
- The introduction of mini options
- Exchanges as SROs
- The possibility of tradeable VIX products
- And more
Options Insider Radio 118: Interview with Don Montanaro, CEO of TradeKing
When Mark was at the FIA Conference in Boca, he laid claim to his favorite croquet courtside recording spot where he caught up with Don Montanaro, CEO of TradeKing. They discussed:
- The Zecco acquisition, and why it was such a great fit for TradeKing
- Technological elements that are being offered, picking from the best of both Zecco and TradeKing
- The new Forex platform
- New investors who might be interested in the combined entity
- Additional acquisition opportunities
- The clearing issues that the acquisition created, and the hunt for a new clearing partner
- How TradeKing is dealing with the downturn in options trading that happened in 2012, and what they’re expecting for 2013
- Readiness for Mini options
- Binary options
- The ORF fee
- The potential of a transaction tax
- And more…
Options Insider Radio 117: Interview with Optionshop
In this episode, Mark and Chris are joined by Michael Quattrocchi and Bob Fitzsimmons from Optionshop.
They discuss:
- What differentiates Optionshop from other brokers
- The product classes they offer, the exchanges they deal with, and their ideal clients
- The commodities explosion that happened last year
- Optionshop’s educational offerings
- Spread functionality of their trading platform
- Costs to trade on their platform
- And more…
Options Insider Radio 116: Interview with Michael Mollet from CFE
In this episode, Mark and Chris are joined by Michael Mollet, Managing Director of Business Development at CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE).
They discuss:
- An overview of CFE, including the types of VIX contracts listed
- Impressive 2012 volume numbers
- Products for active volatility traders
- The education necessary to help investors understand CFE products
- VIX volume records despite it being range-bound
- Re-launched and re-designed variance contracts
- And more…
Options Insider Radio 115: Interview with Ron Piccinini from PrairieSmarts
In this episode, Mark and Chris talk with PrairieSmarts’ co-founder and Managing Partner, Ron Piccinini.
They discuss:
- An overview of PrairieSmarts, and how it breaks down risk into easy-to-understand metrics
- How the software works, and what separates it from other platforms
- Products that work with the PrairieSmarts software
- The economics of buying portfolio insurance, and how PrairieSmarts can help
- An overview and the mechanics of the software’s back-testing feature
- And more…
Options Insider Radio 114: Interview with Paul Finnegan
In this episode, Mark and Chris are joined by Paul Finnegan, CEO of LiveVol.
The group discusses:
- Paul’s transition from the exchange space to the vendor space
- What is LiveVol, and what does it bring to the marketplace
- Where does LiveVol touch the industry?
- The evolution of LiveVol over time
- The importance of high-quality market data
- LiveVol X platform features
- Different contract types
- And more
Options Insider Radio 113: Lightspeed Financial
Mark and Chris are joined by Steve Ehrlich, CEO of Lightspeed Financial.
They discuss
- The differentiators of Lightspeed’s trading platform
- They key to fast, accurate market data
- Portfolio margining
- The solution to executing spreads
- The decline in options volume in 2012
- Education as the secret weapon of brokers
- Looking out for clients, versus churn and burn
- And more…
Options Insider Radio 112: Interview with Gary Katz
In this episode, Mark and Chris are joined by Gary Katz, CEO of ISE.
They discuss:
- Mini options ready to launch in March
- Why can’t we trade it now?
- Market share, both for November and year-to-date
- ISE’s OptimISE platform
- Multiple exchanges and models…what does it mean for customers?
- The impact of regulation
- The prospects of opening a new exchange for ISE?
- The max SPY contract
- And much more
Options Insider Radio 111: Interview with Steve Crutchfield
In this episode, Mark and Chris are joined by Steve Crutchfield, Head of U.S. Options at NYSE.
They discuss:
- The shift of focus at NYSE and how that shaped Steve’s new position
- The impact on the changes at NYSE on their options business, including working with their floor brokers
- Dividend trades, including the ethics, consequences, and the reasons behind them
- And much, much more…
Options Insider Radio 110: Interview with George Ruhana, CEO of OptionsHouse
In this episode, Mark and Chris are joined by George Ruhana, CEO of OptionsHouse.
They discuss:
- OptionsHouse's platform overhaul
- Various apps available from Options House
- As a client, Chris makes a request
- Prodigio app
- Why choose OptionsHouse
- Why trading options makes sense
- The implications of weeklys expirations
- And a lot more.
Options Insider Radio 109 with Larry Aronwitz
Mark and Chris are joined by Larry Arnowitz, President of Atrium Trading.
They discuss:
- What is Atrium Trading, including their commissions and client types
- Getting into the brokerage business
- Choosing a broker
- Social media as a vehicle for education
- Brokerage horror stories
- Atrium Trading mobile app
- Lack of American interest in FX
- Clearing brouhaha
- Disaster preparedness in light of hurricane Sandy
- And so much more…
Options Insider Radio Featuring Tony McCormick
Join your hosts, Mark Longo and Chris Nagy, as they discuss the world of options with Tony McCormick, the CEO of BOX Options Exchange.
They discussed:
- Mark's hosting of the Exchange Leader's panel at FIA New York
- How Tony's retail background has served him as leader of BOX
- BOX's creation of the price improvement model
- The volume on BOX that is price improved
- Exchanges creating multiple market models
- High frequency trading and the use of order types
- Wrapping one's head around spreads
- BOX's upcoming complex spread book
- The opaque nature of options volume
- Dividend trades
- SEC's technology roundtable
FIA New York - Exchange Leaders Panel
Mark moderates the Exchange Leaders Panel at FIA New York.
The panelists were:
- Steve Crutchfield, AMEX
- Lisa Fall, BOX
- Boris Ilyevsky, ISE
- Jeromee Johnson, BATS Markets
- Ed Provost, CBOE
- Walt Smith, NASDAQ PHLX
Options Insider Radio 108: Who is the King of Retail
Mark sits with Christopher Nagy, former Managing Director at TD Ameritrade and now the founder of King of Retail (KOR) Trading.
Mark and Chris explore the bizarre origins of that name as well as what Chris hopes to accomplish with KOR Trading. In addition, Mark and Chris explore a number of other controversial options topics including: after-hours options trading for retail customers, the impending launch of the new mini AAPL contracts and much more.
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: Closing Remarks & the Passing of the Hammer
The Options Insider's exclusive coverage of the 2012 OIC Conference concludes with the closing remarks and the passing of the hammer.
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: Keynote Speaker Peter Ricchiuti
The Options Insider's exclusive coverage of the 2012 OIC Conference continues with the final keynote address delivered by Peter Ricchiuti, Economist/Humorist and Professor at Tulane University.
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: The Future of Social Communication in Financial Services
The Options Insider's exclusive coverage of the 2012 OIC Conference continues with: The Future of Social Communication in Financial Services
--Moderator: Jim Binder, Director of Public Relations, The Options Industry Council
--Scott Peterson, Co-Founder, Relay Station Social Media
--Steven Sears, Columnist & Senior Editor, Barron's
--Jill Dodge, Managing Director, Global Marketing, NASDAQ OMX
--Phil Pearlman, Executive Editor, StockTwits
Options Insider Radio 106: Interview with Tony McCormick, CEO of the Boston Options Exchange
Taped live at the 2012 OIC Conference, Mark and Tony cover all the hot-button issues of the day, including: * Going through the process of receiving the SRO * NASDAQ’s recent competition * Litigation around the PIP * Specific updates to the order book * Retail after-hours trading * Thoughts on the mini Apple and max SPY
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: Advanced Cyber Threats & Countermeasures
Anthony Bargar, EVP - Cyber Security Solutions, Foreground Security presents "Advanced Cyber Threats & Countermeasures - Battle Tested Strategies for the Financial Service Sector"
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: Featured Presentation by John Hague
John Hague of McGladrey & Pullen LLP, discusses "Regulatory, Auditing and Accounting Changes That Affect the Financial Services Industry - A Practical Discussion"
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: Keynote Address by Charlie Cook
Charlie Cook of The Cook Political Report, delivers the first keynote address at the 2012 OIC Conference
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: Presentation of the Sullivan Award
Presentation of the 2012 Joseph W. Sullivan Award to CBOE's Edward J. Joyce
Options Insider Radio 105: Interview with Gary Katz, CEO of International Securities Exchange
Taped live at the 2012 OIC Conference, Mark and Gary cover all the hot-button issues of the day.
Topics include: * Max SPY contract * Bringing the Max SPY to the next level, creating a sort of Super Max SPY * New trading floor possibilities * Improvements to their spread functionality with the implied order type * Technology as its own revenue center * Mini options * After hours trading * An update of the ISE product suite
Options Insider Radio 104: Interview with Russ Chrusciel, Division Head of SunGard-Valdi Options
Recorded live at the 2012 OIC Conference, Mark and Russ discuss:
• The transition into Valdi suite of products in the past year
• A breakdown about the Valdi product line
• Valdi’s plans to add more analytics into your data feed
• When the thin client retail version of MicroHedge/Valdi might come out
• What they have to offer the high end retail trader
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: Options Exchange Leaders Panel
Always a conference highlight, here is the Options Exchange Leaders Panel Moderated by Joseph Gawronski, President and COO, Rosenblatt Securities Inc.
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: St. Bernard Project
Zack Rosenburg, Co-Founder, discusses the St. Bernard Project.
Exclusive 2012 OIC Conference Coverage: Welcoming Address
Robert Greifeld, Chief Executive Officer, The NASDAQ OMX Group presents the welcome address.
Options Insider Radio 102: NYSE Arca Options In this segment, Mark interviews Paul Finnegan and Amy Farnstrom, Co-CEOs of NYSE Arca Options. * Topics covered include: * Last year's roller coaster ride. * Their thoughts on the merger. * Arca has an interesting relationship with the Amex, what exactly is that relationship like? * What interesting thing might we see in the future for Arca? * How likely is Arca to pursue retail options trading in the after-hours?
Options Insider Radio 101: NYSE Technologies
Live from the 2012 OIC Conference, Mark interviews Tom Watson of NYSE Technologies. They discuss: * What is NYSE Technologies * Options Analytics, which has a feed that will provide the underlying, volatility and options Greeks * A data filtering product, which can help those who may just be using OPERA * Inroads they've made developing a cloud
Options Insider Radio 100: NYSE AMEX Options Mark and Steve discuss:
• Planning, preparing, and then throwing out all of the plans from last year’s roller coaster
• Investors’ concerns and opinions on the merger
• Amex market share: what are the growth attributes, and what are the ongoing strategies to attract more customers?
• The relationship between Amex and Arca
• Ongoing Amex projects
• The possibility of after-hours retail trading
Options Insider Radio 95: Live From FIA Chicago with Phil Gocke
Live from the expo floor of FIA Chicago, Mark is joined by Phil Gocke, Managing Director of Institutions at OIC. In this episode, Mark and Phil discuss OIC's recent study which takes a look at buy-writes versus the Russell 2000.
Options Insider Radio 94: Live from FIA Chicago with Joe Burgoyne Live from the exhibit floor of FIA Chicago 2011, Mark sits down with OIC Director Joe Burgoyne. They discuss OIC outreach, in particular with students in higher education.