Release improves profitability on equity options desks by making it easier to find, analyze, and execute deals despite increasingly fragmented liquidity
Pivot Inc., the provider of the collaboration and liquidity management products Pivot 360™ and Instant Markets™, today announced the availability of Instant Markets for the $5 trillion equity options market. Pivot’s open, global platform directly increases the revenue and profitability of capital markets customers by organizing and filtering fragmented equity options liquidity and enabling integration of associated market data with other applications such as pricing engines, middle and back office applications, and tick databases.
Growing volumes combined with decimalization, electronic platforms, and smaller order sizes are making it increasingly difficult to locate and execute liquidity in the institutional equity options market. Instant Markets directly addresses this problem by transforming existing text-based liquidity into electronic data. Once in electronic form, users can focus on relevant deals more quickly through shared and filtered market data screens that seamlessly integrate with related trading applications while eliminating unnecessary noise. As a result, Instant Markets users find, analyze, and process existing fragmented liquidity much faster and more accurately.
Trading desks gain the clear view and speed associated with electronic trading without requiring counterparties to change their workflow. Instant Markets automatically populates Microsoft Excel and 3rd-party pricing and volatility models.
“We price markets four to five times faster with Pivot than before, giving us a clear advantage in a fast moving market,” said Bud Nagle of Lindamar Capital. “Plus, we were really impressed with their customer service and responsiveness.”
Instant Markets open, standards-based API allows for seamless integration with CRM, risk, trade capture, and execution systems. For equity option brokers and salespeople, that means increased speed and efficiency, leading to higher levels of customer service and greater deal volume. Instant Markets eliminates unnecessary searching and rekeying so brokers can focus on personal relationships and matching orders. By creating a focused, shared view of order flow Pivot allows brokerage desks to identify and react quicker to customer orders, match orders faster, and get orders into OMS and trade execution systems with one click.
“Participants in this market have never been able to get their hands on this type of data so quickly and easily,” said John H. Eley, ceo. “With the current emphasis on maximizing trading profits in the most cost-effective manner, trading desks have come to the conclusion that they can’t afford not to leverage tools like Pivot to make their trading desk as competitive as possible.”
Equity options marks the fifth market release for Pivot’s Instant Markets product. Pivot’s customer network now includes over 300 firms, including all 5 of the U.S.’s largest banks, with users in cash equities, equity derivatives, and commodity OTC and derivatives markets.
