Preparing for the OPRA Expansion
As the options industry meets this week in Nashville, one major conversation swirling among attendees is a looming market data challenge: The Options Price Reporting Authority’s plan to expand its multicast data distribution from 48 to 96 data streams in July 2023.
Exegy is already talking to clients about this change and how they’ll need to prepare for a flood of data from a feed already well-known for its “firehose” tendencies:
The change: OPRA’s expansion to 96-channel distribution is set for July 31, 2023. The goal of the expansion is to better balance the load of exploding data volumes and burstiness as options activity and volatility continue to increase.
The impact: An immediate bandwidth burden for connected firms. While the expansion doesn’t change the total volume of data, it allows OPRA to disseminate it faster. That means firms must have the networking capability to ingest it more quickly. SIAC, which provides technical services for OPRA, has advised multicast subscribers to prepare for rate peaks of up to 37.3 gigabits / second.
The solutions: These can vary, depending on a firm’s needs. A hardware-accelerated solution allows firms to handle the increased data rates without an expensive horizontal expansion of their existing footprint. For many firms, a data-as-a-service solution like Exegy’s Axiom Feed gives them all the data that is important to them, delivered in either low-latency real-time or conflated format.
Long-term concerns: This is not the biggest challenge firms face with OPRA – just the most recent symptom of it. Options data is growing by leaps and bounds – average daily volume in cleared options contracts increased nearly 40% from 2020 to 2022. As your firm plans for this OPRA expansion, you should be thinking not just about July 2023 but 2024 and beyond. Exegy’s market data experts are committed to helping you navigate the complex challenges you face with our future-proof solutions. Set up an appointment to craft a plan for your OPRA needs.
