MIAX to Disrupt Volatility Market with Launch of SPIKES Options Trading Feb. 19

PRINCETON, N.J. – February 14, 2019 – MIAX Options® is set to launch options trading on the SPIKES™ Index (Ticker: SPIKE) Feb. 19, emerging as the first true competitor that the single-player volatility market has seen in its 15-year history.


MIAX has released a one-minute video to give investors a glimpse of the new opportunities SPIKES will open up next week as a measure of the expected 30-day volatility in the SPDR® S&P 500® ETF (SPY):
MIAX’s move to list and trade cash-settled options on the index marks what it sees as a turning point for investors in a volatility market that has never faced competition. The firm envisions that SPIKES will fuel growth industry-wide and ultimately lower transaction fees, trading on the MIAX platform that sets higher standards for speed, reliability and accuracy.

The video showcases key features of SPIKES, including:

  • tight option bid-ask spreads for pinpoint accuracy and radically faster dissemination, publishing every 100 milliseconds compared to the current rate of every 15 seconds
  • pricing inputs traded on all U.S options exchanges, resulting in a more transparent index and ability to arbitrage mispricings
  • highly competitive exchange fees.

The launch will also be marked by the release of new online data for investors on the SPIKES site—all free. In addition to a news page with the latest volatility-trading coverage and a comprehensive list of FAQs, it will also feature user-facing APIs for publicly-available information from the SPIKES Volatility Index, including:

  • SPIKES daily full 100ms tick data, which contains tick-by-tick index data of approximately 243,000 records in CSV format
  • SPIKES daily Open/High/Low/Close data sets in JSON format

Since it commenced trading in 2012, MIAX has expanded its global footprint, ventured into new markets and successfully launched several major initiatives. The firm’s fully electronic options trading exchange and drive to build breakthrough technology has also earned it regular industry recognition.

The firm recently won the "Most Innovative Exchange Technology" category at the Fund Technology and WSL Awards 2019 for exchange technology that was designed and built completely in-house by the MIAX technology teams. The award recognizes providers catering to asset managers and institutional traders that have demonstrated exceptional customer service and innovative product development over the past 12 months.

For more information on SPIKES, visit: https://www.miaxoptions.com/spikes