BOX Delivers $8.7 Million in Price Improvement for January

BOX Options Exchange realized an 85 percent increase in overall average daily trading volume in January with 600,196 contracts, as compared to the same period last year.

A new retail customer focus has paid off for BOX, according to CEO Tony McCormick, who cites changes the exchange made in 2010 to increase value to its customers. “Our impressive price improvement and ongoing gains in market share prove retail customers see the benefit from our PIP (price improvement auction).”

Of the contracts traded, the number of price improved contracts increased to an average of 386,124 per day, according to the Boston-based electronic options exchange.

BOX’s patent--pending PIP (price improvement process auction) has delivered $337 million in price improvement since inception with $8.7 million in savings to the customer in January, according to the release. BOX says that price improvement via PIP averaged $1.12 per contract versus the prevailing NBBO for contracts submitted in January.

BOX’s results also follow technology improvements including the launch of a new options platform in May 2010, switching to a matching engine with three times faster response times and message allocation.

Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio