BATS Hires Options Exec From 3D
March 30, 2009
BATS Exchange has hired Jeromee Johnson to look into building an options platform aimed at the high-velocity traders BATS caters to in the equities market. VP of market development at BATS, Johnson was previously president of New Hope, Pa.-based 3D Markets, operator of an options block-trading venue.
Johnson said he could not estimate when the options exchange would launch, because the timing will be affected by pending regulatory developments. Variables include the Securities and Exchange Commission's expected short-sale rules and the as-yet-unknown shape of an exemption for options market makers-the type of firms BATS would target. "Depending on those outcomes," said Johnson, "we may be able to move very aggressively."
Other changes could make the options market look more like the equities market, where BATS routinely garners more than 12 percent of volumes. Decimalization in the equities market in 2001 revved up electronic trading and set the stage for a wave of electronic communications networks, including BATS, which became an exchange last year. Johnson noted that the expansion of penny-increment pricing for options could have similar effects in that asset class. An intermarket-linkage plan for options exchanges is also pending, noted Johnson, and would allow for intermarket sweep orders and greater use of algorithms--key components of rapid trading strategies in equities.
Johnson joined 3D Markets in August 2007 from New York-based Tabb Group, where he had been a senior analyst since early 2006. He has also been director of product development and professional services at agency brokerage UNX and a senior technical engineer at former FIX engine provider Javelin Technologies.
