The Options Symbology Initiative

Abstract

Exchange-listed options are the fastest growing asset class traded on exchanges in the USA today. The volume last year was a 295 per cent increase over the number of contracts traded just five years before. The listed options industry has undergone tremendous changes since it began in 1973, but the manner in which market data was being conveyed among market participants has been stuck in a decades-old and increasingly inefficient infrastructure. The Options Symbology Initiative (OSI) is designed to update the industry infrastructure to allow for enhanced new product innovation, more accurate calculations for corporate actions and improved retail investor understanding of the product. The focus of this paper is to educate the reader about the project and its benefits to the options industry.