Weinig publiekA small follow up on the play offs for primary market makers in half a dozen stock options. It was announced in October and held during December and January. With rival option exchange TOM capturing a lot of market share amidst shrinking volumes, quoting tight on Euronext is getting a little bit yesterday’s game.

Quoting the tightest spreads will win the play off, and the obligation to quote the options for the rest of the year. For more information on the liquidity providers, check here at NYSE Euronext’s website. The current situation seems to be IMC is losing all their primary quoting rights to one of the three smaller market makers 323, Caerus and Nino.  Doesn’t say anything about profitability, though.

  • Ahold : Caerus, IMC, Optiver, 323 Trading
  • Aperam : Caerus, Nino
  • CSM : Caerus, 323 Trading
  • Fugro : Nino, 323 Trading
  • KPN : Caerus, 323 Trading
  • Randstad : Nino, 323 Trading
  • SBM Offshore : Nino, Leopark

It’s a mixed bag. Nino get the primary market maker license for SBM and Aperam, Caerus takes KPN and CSM and 323 Trading will be happy with Fugro, Randstad and Ahold. As expected, Optiver did defend their position in Ahold.

Last week TOM caught 19% of the total option volume (pdf). Their new daily and weekly options on the AEX has been quite a succes with 42% and 31% respectively. I assume they will roll out their business model to monthly AEX options pretty soon.

Jack