BATS Trading Inc., an innovative and technology leading U.S. market center, announces the availability of TOP, its new top of book market data feed.
BATS TOP offers up to a 66% reduction in events and an 84% reduction in bandwidth compared to BATS' PITCH market data feed. TOP, like other BATS' market data offerings such as PITCH and FAST PITCH, is free of charge.
"With BATS matching 9 to 10% of all U.S. equity trade volume each day, and as trading volume continues to increase on our system, the number of quotes and trades we disseminate in our market data feed increases, requiring additional bandwidth and processing power by our subscribers," said BATS Chief Executive Joe Ratterman. "If your firm's trading applications only require top of book quotes and do not depend on depth of book, our new TOP protocol offers a significant reduction in required bandwidth and processing power.
"The announcement of TOP, combined with our longstanding free market data policy and our recent agreement to provide free, real-time quotes and last trade data to Yahoo! Finance, is evidence that BATS is Making Markets Better for participants who are frustrated with the industry's current market data environment," Mr. Ratterman said.
Chris Isaacson, chief operating officer at BATS, added "It is important to note that BATS does reflect its top of book quote to the consolidated feed but market data received directly via the TOP protocol is simply faster.
"TOP quotations provide aggregated size and price of the best bid and ask on the BATS book as well as last sale information. In addition, TOP offers the ability to connect at any time and receive a spin of BATS most recent market data (bid/ask/last/volume) for all symbols," he said.
BATS recommends 10 megabits of bandwidth to receive the TOP market data feed.
Hidden orders (FIX 9479=I) are not represented in TOP and, as stated above, TOP does not send depth of book information. Depth of book market data can be received via the BATS PITCH protocol.
BATS, which filed for exchange status in November 2007 and recently completed the formal public comment period, is hopeful that approval will be granted and it can begin operations as a national securities exchange in 2008.