Volatility-Based Quoting Convention for FX Options
OTC Quoting Methodology Available on CME Globex

CME Group now offers volatility-based quoting on six of its FX options on futures contracts

Euro FX

British pound

Japanese yen

Canadian dollar

Swiss franc

Australian dollar

This is the quoting convention commonly used in the OTC market. It enables OTC market participants – such as banks and hedge funds – to use a familiar quote format while also while benefiting from the transparency, liquidity and financial safeguards of our rapidly growing electronic FX options market.

Details

Volatility-based quoting

  • Enables “delta-neutral” trading
  • Eliminates the execution risk inherent to trading in live premium
  • Is offered with European and American-style expirations for five of the currency pairs
    • Australian dollar initially available with American-style expiration only
  • Utilizes CME Group’s existing FX options and futures products
  • Is 100 percent fungible with the exchange’s existing premium-quoted FX options and futures.

Summary of Functionality

  • In addition to quoting single product type, volatility-quoting is available for three types of spreads using single volatility bid and offer inputs: straddles, strangles and verticals.
  • Matching of volatility prices occurs on a FIFO basis, with minimum price fluctuations of 0.025%.
  • A refined tick pricing granularity (1/10th regular tick) ensures accuracy of the volatility-to-premium conversion.
  • When a trade occurs, the volatility match is reported, but customer accounts receive only the individual option legs and associated futures hedge breakdown.
  • The pricing engine converts volatility matches using the Black model for European-style options and the Whaley (over Black) model for American-style options.
  • The engine also allocates a delta-offsetting futures position to each party in the transaction based on the mid-price of the underlying futures contract at the time of the match.
    • This futures allocation is not reported in MD as an actual transaction (similar to covered transactions).
  • Fees apply to the option legs only.
  • CME Group anticipates providing early incentives for market-makers similar to those in place for premium-quoted options.

About FX Options Growth

Over the past two years, CME Group has enhanced its FX options offering by adding European-style expirations and increased market accessibility by listing all of our most actively traded FX options on CME Globex. These changes have helped fuel year-to-date 75 percent growth in FX options volume through the end of Q4 2007 with an average daily volume of $2.4 billion.

Download the Client Impact document

If you have additional questions about the product or are interested in becoming a market maker, please contact Craig LeVeille at 312-454-5301 or Will Patrick at +44 207 796 7100.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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