The International Securities Exchange (ISE) announced today that its options exchange now offers Flash functionality, a feature that enhances the execution quality of eligible customer orders. Customer orders otherwise subject to Linkage will now be auctioned to the entire ISE member community for up to one second. The Flash auction provides these orders with the opportunity for price improvement and for faster execution than if they were routed through Linkage.
“We are committed to continually enhancing the features of our options platform in order to provide our members with the highest possible execution quality,” said Boris Ilyevsky, Head of Business Development for ISE's options exchange. “Flash functionality will benefit our customers by providing greater opportunity for price improvement, and the entire ISE member community will now be able to trade with orders that were previously unavailable to them.“
Prior to the introduction of Flash, customer orders that arrived at ISE when the away markets had a better available price could only receive price improvement from the Primary Market Maker (PMM) before being subject to Linkage. The Flash auction now enables the entire ISE member community to offer a better price for these orders. At the conclusion of the auction, the customer order trades with the responses that are better or equal to the NBBO. Should any portion of the order remain, it then follows standard Linkage procedures.
For more information on Flash functionality, please send an email to bizdev@ise.com.