Best innovation by a clearing house
Americas
Options Clearing Corporation
Options Symbology Initiative | |
Symbolic logic
The February 2010 switchover to the Options Symbology Initiative ended 25 years of confusion over the symbols that identify options, which had hampered development of the US market under the Opra coding system.
A lack of numbers was a thorn of the old five-letter system, requiring increasingly obscure letter combinations to designate the underlying, the expiry month and the strike price in one code.
The Options Clearing Corporation, the utility organisation funded by the US options exchange operators, took the lead role in coming up with a more logical alphanumeric system.
1973 to 2010 is a long time to go without a makeover – just ask Bob Dylan. But in partnership with market participants, the OCC implemented the solution this year with no reported problems – a remarkable achievement.
At last, codes for more complex contracts such...