Source: American Stock Exchange
The American Stock Exchange (Amex) announced today that it received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for two new classes of Registered Options Traders (ROTs): Remote Registered Options Traders (RROTs) and Supplemental Registered Options Traders (SROTs).
RROTs shall be specialists or market makers who would act as ROTs on the Amex by entering bids and offers electronically from locations other than the crowd where the applicable options classes are traded. Floor members will be granted a certain number of remote quoting rights based upon their percentage of market share in the options in which they specialize or upon the percentage of floor volume they execute. Amex expects members granted rights to act as RROTs to begin trading May 1, 2006.
SROTs will be a group of six member organizations which will be granted remote quoting rights to trade at least 300-400 most active options. Amex is currently accepting applications from firms seeking to quote and trade as SROTs and expects to announce its selected firms in early May.
"I believe that the proposed two new classes of ROTs will improve the depth and liquidity of our option quotes and significantly enhance the ability of the Amex to compete for order flow," said Mike Bickford, Senior Vice President of Options at the Amex.