EDGX Exchange

Cboe Announces Liquidity Provider Protection Feature to Encourage Market Making

Cboe proposes that once a liquidity-taking order reaches EDGA it would wait four milliseconds before trading with resting orders on the order book.

Cboe announced the introduction of a new Liquidity Provider Protection feature (“LP2”) on its Cboe EDGA Equities Exchange. The tool, which will be introduced subject to regulatory approval, was designed to enhance liquidity and enable market makers to make better markets in stocks traded on the exchange.

Reflecting Cboe’s ongoing commitment to evolve its equity trading platforms to meet evolving customer needs and strengthen the U.S. equities markets, the protection feature addresses the fact that today’s existing delay mechanisms applied by other U.S. equities exchanges do not provide any protection to market makers and other participants that primarily post displayed, two-sided markets, despite the critical function these participants play in price discovery.

The tool reduces cross-market latency arbitrage in order to enable liquidity providers to enhance market quality by maintaining tighter spreads, increasing inside quote durations, and posting larger size.

CBOE
CBOE

Cboe proposes that once a liquidity-taking order reaches EDGA it would wait four milliseconds before trading with resting orders on the order book. This would allow liquidity providers to take more risk and quote tighter spreads with greater size by giving them sufficient time to re-price their resting orders before opportunistic traders can trade with them at stale prices.

Bryan Harkins, Executive Vice President, Co-Head of Markets Division at Cboe, commented: “As a leading U.S. securities exchange operator, Cboe is committed to bringing forth new ideas that add value to our ever-evolving markets. Our proposed LP2 initiative is the result of vital and ongoing consultation with customers and investors, and we will continue to actively seek out ways to deliver innovative and flexible solutions that best meet their needs.”

“LP2 would enhance the ability of market makers to provide liquidity to investors by deemphasizing speed, measured in microseconds and nanoseconds, as a key to trading success. We believe this should provide a market structure with improved market quality, optimize price discovery, and benefit all market participants who choose to trade on Cboe EDGA. We welcome the industry’s feedback on our proposal, and look forward to continuing our ongoing dialogue with regulators, legislators and our customers to define markets that best serve all investors.”

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