Insights
A VIX for APAC:
Building a regional volatility benchmark
CSDR: promising signs from the new settlement discipline regime
Directed market makers:
another path to internalization?
An illustrated guide to price controls on US exchanges
Market structure
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Market structure A VIX for APAC: Building a regional volatility benchmark
Despite the growing popularity of Asia-Pacific markets, investors in the region lack a volatility benchmark on par with the Cboe Volatility Index or the Euro Stoxx 50 Volatility Index. We believe the Nikkei Stock Average Volatility Index (NKVI) is the most promising candidate to become a leading gauge for APAC. However, to date, methodological shortcomings […]
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Market structure
Optiver joins Aquis Exchange as liquidity provider For European stocks
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Market structure
Options market maker protections: a best-in-class approach
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Market structure
Three ways to keep Europe’s retail investors investing
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Latest
Regulation
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Market regulation CSDR: promising signs from the new settlement discipline regime
Cash penalties introduced under the Settlement Discipline Regime (SDR) are working, early data and anecdotal evidence show. With market participants already incentivized to get their post-trade in order, mandatory buy-ins could introduce fresh risks into the process.
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Market regulation A better way to measure best execution
Regulators have suspended RTS 27 reporting and are considering scrapping the requirement to produce RTS 27 and RTS 28 reports altogether. These reports are designed to show the extent to which investors in the U.K. and EU receive best execution for their trades, and they do have some issues in their current form. Instead of scrapping them altogether however, we advocate for making them more useful and less cumbersome to produce.
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Market regulation Portfolio compression in centrally cleared markets
Portfolio compression is a post-trade balance sheet reduction technique in which two or more counterparties terminate some (or all) of their open interest in derivative contracts, simplifying the management of positions. This frees up valuable capital that would otherwise be held unnecessarily against offsetting positions that could be compressed. The end goal of compression is a cleaner portfolio, with less complexity and enhanced capital efficiencies, allowing for healthier and safer derivative markets.
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Market regulation Investment firms review
Level 2 measures Executive Summary The recognition by EU institutions that applying the CRD/CRR framework is disproportionate for most EU investment firms, and the subsequent introduction of the new IFD/IFR regime, is crucial for the development of deep and liquid capital markets in Europe; When designing technical standards under the newly created IFD/IFR regime, it […]
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Market regulation Consolidated tape
Investors and the capital markets are best served through the delivery of a low-cost, real-time Consolidated Tape of all transactions executed within the Union. Optiver advocates for the intervention by legislators and regulators to form a public utility Consolidated Tape Provider (CTP) that can deliver a low-cost, real-time Consolidated Tape (CT) of post-trade data. This […]
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Market regulation CCP recovery and resolution
A Perspective from Market Makers Optiver, as one of the largest market making firms in the world, supports legislation that gives regulators and CCPs effective tools to ensure CCPs’ functions are preserved in times of crisis Recovery and resolution of an ailing CCP should be viewed as a public utility function, requiring ex-ante guidelines and […]
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Market regulation Review of MiFID II
The reference price in the lit market a foundation to build on As one of the main pieces of the post-crisis reform agenda impacting the financial services sector, MiFID II lays the foundation for more stable and liquid markets in Europe. In order to roll out its potential, further strengthen investor protection and create fully […]
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Market views
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Market views Optiver is a key counterparty for SocGen Luxembourg’s automated equities solution
When Societe Generale Luxembourg, the country’s oldest foreign banking institution, sought to improve its execution process in cash equities, it turned to Optiver.
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Market views
Volatility investing in 2021
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Market views
How is the industry tracking in the ESG transition?
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Market views
EQD research: volatility at tipping point in South Korea
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Latest
Explainers
Read our thought leadership pieces, industry news, market structure insights and more.
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Explainers An illustrated guide to price controls on US exchanges
Well-designed price controls are key in our view to preserving orderly and efficient markets. Given their complexity, we present this overview of the various mechanisms in place across U.S. exchanges.
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Series
Explainers Call options
What do long/short positions in call options mean? An investor that buys call options benefits when the price of the underlying asset is higher than the strike price of the option at expiry. The writer of the call option has the opposite pay-off potential and receives a fixed option premium when they sell the contract.
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Series
Explainers Put options
An investor that buys put options benefits from this position when the price of the underlying asset is lower than the strike price of the option at expiry. Conversely, if at expiry the price of the underlying asset is higher than the strike price, the option expires with no intrinsic value and the investor’s loss is equal to the option premium paid.
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SeriesExplainers Options strategies (protective put & covered call)
Besides buying or selling single options, there are many other possible strategies that involve positions in multiple options simultaneously, as well as combining options with positions in the underlying assets.
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Series
Explainers Options strategies (protective collar)
Besides buying or selling single options, there are many other possible strategies that involve positions in multiple options simultaneously, as well as combining options with positions in the underlying assets.
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Series
Explainers Options strategies (long straddle)
Besides buying or selling single options, there are many other possible strategies that involve positions in multiple options simultaneously, as well as combining options with positions in the underlying assets.
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SeriesExplainers Options volatility
Volatility is an important concept in the context of option trading, but it’s also one of the more complex ones to understand. In financial markets, volatility captures the amount of fluctuation in asset prices and is generally calculated as the annualized standard deviation of daily price changes, normally expressed as a percentage. To convert the […]
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SeriesExplainers Options pricing
The Options Basics Explainer introduced the concepts of call and put options, strike price, expiry, and long or short positions in an option contract. This page looks in more detail at option pricing. In the money or out of the money? Preview in new tab An option is a derivative contract that derives its value […]
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SeriesExplainers Option Greeks
The Option Greeks are a collection of variables that measure the sensitivity of option prices to changes in underlying factors . Mathematically, they are derivatives of components of option pricing models. Each factor has a Greek letter assigned to it, hence the name ‘Greeks’.
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Explainers Futures
What is a future? A future is a type of derivative contract that represents an agreement to buy or sell an asset at a specified future date, for a price determined today. It is a standardized contract traded on a derivatives exchange. Futures are an important hedging/insurance tool that can be used to protect against […]
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All Insights
Optiver on Twitter
US markets have the $VIX, and Europe follows the $VSTOXX. So why don’t Asia-Pacific markets have a #volatility gauge of similar stature? That’s the question we ask in our latest Insight.
https://optiver.com/insights/a-vix-for-apac-building-a-regional-volatility-benchmark-2/