The American Stock Exchange (Amex) announced today that it has received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the Amex New Trading Environment (ANTE), a new electronic options trading platform, which will launch on Tuesday, May 25th.
Salvatore F. Sodano, Amex chairman and chief executive officer, said, "The approval of ANTE is a significant milestone for the Exchange. ANTE combines the superior price discovery of the auction market system with the increase in speed and efficiency of the electronic trading platform. ANTE will make for tighter markets and allow our customers to come in and access the full advantages of a screen-based trading system without sacrificing the outstanding liquidity traditionally provided by our trading floor."
Michael T. Bickford, senior vice president for options at the Amex, said, "We are extremely excited about our aggressive rollout schedule for ANTE. We plan to trade our 300 most active options within the next six months and we expect ANTE to greatly enhance our competitiveness in the options marketplace."
Tanstaafl Research and Trading will be the first specialist unit to trade using the ANTE system. The names of the options to be traded will be listed on Tuesday, May 25th on the American Stock Exchange website at www.amex.com/amextrader.
KEY BENEFITS OF ANTE:
SPEED
Increase speed of execution through a streamlined execution process that automatically matches orders and quotes in the central book.LIQUIDITY
Specialists and Market Makers can auto-quote or manually enter their own quotes and orders directly into the Amex market. This creates tighter markets, greater liquidity and displays the full size of the crowd.INSTANTANEOUS ACCESS
Incoming customer orders automatically match against the posted quantity in the central book. This will allow investors to access full size that is available on an instantaneous basis.ENHANCED SURVEILLANCE
ANTE offers enhanced surveillance capabilities that track Specialists and Market Makers as they join or leave the crowd. ANTE also tracks quotes and orders in the marketplace and creates order logs that provide greater surveillance. CUSTOMERS ALWAYS COME FIRST
ANTE executes orders in price priority with customer orders having priority over all orders, while orders of Specialists, Market Makers and off-floor Principals are on parity and allocated using the Specialist Allocation Ratio.OTHER FEATURES:
Specialists and Market Makers will access ANTE with the highly customizable and parameter driven Trading Application.Automatic Price Improvement can be configured and enabled by Specialists to immediately trade incoming customer orders at prices better than the posted markets.Amex will also publish a proprietary API, which will allow Specialists and Market Makers to create and design their own custom front ends to meet their specific needs.Specialist controlled Price Improvement parameters will allow the Specialist (as well as the crowd) to match, or better, the away markets for incoming customer orders. All executions are subject to trade through checks, which guarantees an order routed to the Amex receives the best price available in the market.
About American Stock Exchange
The American Stock Exchange® (Amex®) is the only primary exchange that offers trading across a full range of equities, options and exchange traded funds (ETFs), including structured products and HOLDRSSM. In addition to its role as a national equities market, the Amex is the pioneer of the ETF, responsible for bringing the first domestic product to market in 1993. Leading the industry in ETF listings, the Amex lists 138 ETFs to date. The Amex is also one of the largest options exchanges in the U.S., trading options on broad-based and sector indexes as well as domestic and foreign stocks.
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