Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Act”),
The Exchange proposes to amend the Exchange's Schedule of Fees, as described in further detail below.
The text of the proposed rule change is available on the Exchange's Web site at
In its filing with the Commission, the Exchange included statements concerning the purpose of and basis for the proposed rule change and discussed any comments it received on the proposed rule change. The text of these statements may be examined at the places specified in Item IV below. The Exchange has prepared summaries, set forth in sections A, B, and C below, of the most significant aspects of such statements.
The purpose of the proposed rule change is to amend the Exchange's Schedule of Fees to make changes to (1) the Market Maker Plus
In order to promote and encourage liquidity in Select Symbols, the Exchange offers Market Makers
The Exchange charges a taker fee for regular orders in Select Symbols. This fee is $0.44 per contract for Market Maker orders, and $0.45 per contract for Non-ISE Market Maker,
Currently, the Exchange provides rebates to Priority Customer complex orders that trade with non-Priority Customer complex orders in the complex order book or trade with quotes and orders on the regular order book. Rebates are tiered based on a member's ADV executed during a given month as follows: 0 to 29,999 contracts (“Tier 1”), 30,000 to 59,999 contracts (“Tier 2”), 60,000 to 99,999 contracts (“Tier 3”), 100,000 to 149,999 (“Tier 4”), 150,000 to 199,999 contracts (“Tier 5”), and 200,000 or more contracts (“Tier 6”). In Select Symbols the rebate is $0.30 per contract for Tier 1, $0.35 per contract for Tier 2, $0.41 per contract for Tier 3, $0.44 per contract for Tier 4, $0.46 per contract for Tier 5, and $0.47 per contract for Tier 6. In Non-Select Symbols the rebate is $0.63 per contract for Tier 1, $0.71 per contract for Tier 2, $0.79 per contract for Tier 3, $0.81 per contract for Tier 4, $0.83 per contract for Tier 5, and $0.84 per contract for Tier 6.
The Exchange now proposes to (i) introduce two additional volume-based tiers of Priority Customer complex order rebates and (ii) in the existing tiers, amend the volume requirements necessary for achieving higher Priority Customer complex order rebates. As proposed, the ADV thresholds will be as follows: 0 to 14,999 contracts (“Tier 1”), 15,000 to 44,999 contracts (“Tier 2”), 45,000 to 59,999 contracts (“Tier 3”), 60,000 to 74,999 contracts (“Tier 4”), 75,000 to 99,999 contracts (“Tier 5”), 100,000 to 124,999 contracts (“Tier 6”), 125,000 to 224,999 contracts (“Tier 7”), and 225,000 or more contracts (“Tier 8”).
Under the proposal, the rebate amounts provided for Priority Customer complex orders in both Select Symbols and Non-Select Symbols will be amended to reflect the tier changes described above. In Select Symbols, the proposed rebate will be $0.26 per contract for Tier 1, $0.30 per contract for Tier 2, $0.36 per contract for Tier 3, $0.41 per contract for Tier 4, $0.42 per contract for Tier 5, $0.44 per contract for Tier 6, $0.46 per contract for Tier 7, and $0.49 per contract for Tier 8. In Non-Select Symbols, the proposed rebate will be $0.40 per contract for Tier 1, $0.60 per contract for Tier 2, $0.70 per contract for Tier 3, $0.75 per contract for Tier 4, $0.75 per contract for Tier 5, $0.80 per contract for Tier 6, $0.81 per contract for Tier 7, and $0.85 per contract for Tier 8. Other rebate amounts—specifically, the Price Improvement Mechanism (“PIM”) Break-up Rebates for both Select and Non-Select Symbols and the Facilitation and Solicitation Break-up Rebate for Select Symbols—will remain unchanged from their current levels, including the rebate amounts for the two proposed additional tiers.
Today, the Exchange does not provide rebates for Priority Customer complex orders that trade at a net price at or near $0.00 (
The Exchange now proposes to lower the threshold of net zero complex contracts from 10,000 to 2,000 contracts. As such, net zero priced complex orders that leg into the regular order book and are entered by firms with an ADV in this type of activity of 2,000 contracts or more in a given month will not earn the Priority Customer complex order rebate.
The Exchange believes that its proposal is consistent with Section 6(b) of the Act,
The Exchange believes that it is reasonable and equitable to increase the Tier 1 Market Maker Plus rebate because it will encourage Market Makers to post tighter markets in Select Symbols and thereby maintain liquidity and attract additional order flow to the ISE, which will ultimately benefit all market participants that trade on the Exchange. The Tier 1 Market Maker Plus rebate has proven to be an effective incentive for Market Makers to provide liquidity in Select Symbols. The Exchange believes that the proposed Tier 1 Market Maker Plus rebate is reasonable and equitably allocated to those members that direct orders to the Exchange rather than to a competing exchange. The Exchange also believes that the proposed Tier 1 Market Maker Plus rebate is not unfairly discriminatory because all Market Makers can achieve the higher rebate by satisfying the applicable Market Maker Plus requirements.
The Exchange believes that the proposed changes to increase the Priority Customer taker fee and eliminate the Priority Customer taker fee discount program for members with a total affiliated Priority Customer ADV of more than 200,000 contracts are reasonable and equitable because the proposed fees remain lower than the fees charged to other market participants that remove liquidity on the Exchange. In addition, the Exchange believes that it is equitable and not unfairly discriminatory to continue to provide lower fees for Priority Customer orders. A Priority Customer is by definition not a broker or dealer in securities, and does not place more than
The Exchange believes that it is reasonable and equitable to make the proposed changes, both to the volume requirements necessary to achieve the Priority Customer complex order rebates and to the rebate amounts, as the proposals are designed to attract additional Priority Customer complex order volume to the Exchange. Although the Exchange is lowering the rebates for Priority Customer complex orders, it is also generally lowering the associated volume thresholds to make it easier for members to achieve the higher tiers. While the proposed rebate amounts are lower in some categories, the Exchange believes that the proposed changes are reasonable and equitable when looking at the overall program for both Non-Select Symbol and Select Symbol rebates. For example, a member who received a $0.71 Non-Select Symbol rebate for executing an ADV of 45,000 Non-Select Symbol contracts in a given month under the existing program would receive a $0.70 Non-Select Symbol rebate under the proposed program. However, a member who would have received a $0.35 Select Symbol rebate under the existing program for executing the same ADV for Select Symbol contracts in a given month would receive a $0.36 Select Symbol rebate under the proposed program. Therefore, the Exchange believes that the overall amendments to its rebate program for Priority Customer complex orders is reasonable and equitable as proposed. In addition, the Exchange believes that introducing an additional volume-based tier with higher rebate amounts will incentivize members to send additional order flow to the Exchange in order to achieve these rebates for their Priority Customer complex order volume, creating additional liquidity to the benefit of all members that trade complex orders on the Exchange.
The Exchange further believes that it is equitable and not unfairly discriminatory to continue to provide a rebate only for Priority Customer complex orders. A Priority Customer is by definition not a broker or dealer in securities, and does not place more than 390 orders in listed options per day on average during a calendar month for its own beneficial account(s). This limitation does not apply to participants whose behavior is substantially similar to that of market professionals, including Professional Customers, who will generally submit a higher number of orders (many of which do not result in executions) than Priority Customers.
The Exchange believes that the proposed change to lower the threshold of net zero complex contracts is reasonable, equitable, and not unfairly discriminatory as it is designed to remove financial incentives for market participants to engage in rebate arbitrage by entering valueless complex orders on the Exchange that do not have any economic purpose. The Exchange has determined that the current threshold is still too high to effectively discourage market participants from engaging in rebate arbitrage, and believes that the lower threshold proposed in this filing more accurately reflects the Exchange's original intent. No market participants meet the current ADV threshold, as firms have modified their activity to ensure that their complex ADV in the net zero range is lower than the 10,000 ADV threshold set in the original net zero filing. In January 2017, for example, the market participant with the largest ADV in net zero contracts executed an ADV of 1,250 net zero contracts. By comparison the average net zero ADV of market participants that traded complex orders in January 2017 was only 12 contracts, with the vast majority of these market participants executing no net zero contracts. The continued submission of a high volume of net zero complex orders that leg into the regular order book by these firms has generated complaints from the Market Makers that trade against these orders in the regular order book, as firms recognize these net zero complex orders as essentially non-economic.
The Exchange believes that lowering the threshold will make it more difficult for firms to continue to enter net zero complex orders purely to earn a rebate. In particular, the Exchange notes that any firm that engages in this activity will be prevented from doing so with an ADV of more than 2,000 net zero complex orders. This will reduce the cost of these trades to the Exchange and its members as firms are limited in the amount of this net zero complex order activity that they can conduct on the Exchange. While the proposed threshold is still higher than current activity seen in January 2017, the Exchange believes that it is important to lower the ADV threshold to ensure that market participants do not further increase this activity. The Exchange believes that market participants will stop entering net zero complex orders when they reach the proposed ADV threshold as these firms are entering these orders solely for the purpose of earning a rebate. Indeed, this is consistent with the Exchange's experience with this rule to date, as firms that were previously entering a high volume of net zero complex orders have reduced their volume in activity covered by this rule.
To the extent that market participants enter legitimate complex orders, however, they will continue to receive the same rebates that they do today. In addition, market participants that enter an insubstantial volume of net zero complex orders will also continue to receive rebates. The Exchange believes that it is reasonable, equitable, and not unfairly discriminatory to continue to provide rebates where appropriate based on the market participant executing only a low ADV of net zero complex orders. While the Exchange could prohibit rebates for any net zero complex orders without an ADV threshold, doing so would disadvantage innocent market participants that are not engaged in rebate arbitrage. The Exchange believes that the decision to allow rebates for firms with a limited ADV in net zero complex orders properly balances the need to encourage market participants to send order flow to the Exchange, and the need to prevent activity that is harmful to the market. Moreover, all market participants will be treated the same based on their net zero ADV.
In accordance with Section 6(b)(8) of the Act,
No written comments were either solicited or received.
The foregoing rule change has become effective pursuant to Section 19(b)(3)(A)(ii) of the Act,
Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views, and arguments concerning the foregoing, including whether the proposed rule change is consistent with the Act. Comments may be submitted by any of the following methods:
• Use the Commission's Internet comment form (
• Send an email to
• Send paper comments in triplicate to Secretary, Securities and Exchange Commission, 100 F Street NE., Washington, DC 20549–1090.
For the Commission, by the Division of Trading and Markets, pursuant to delegated authority.