[And the ISE will keep working to develop its electronic systems, keeping its staff small, without paying too much attention to what the competition is up to.] We've got a Silicon Valley mentality, a startup feel, long days, weekends -- that's the culture we want to promote, ... We've never really looked at what anybody else was going to do. |
[That brings good news for all the options markets, including the ISE, he believes. Back when the four founders helped float the idea of the ISE,] we said options volume would double in two years. We were wrong. It doubled in six months, ... We think it will double again. |
I've always felt that, given the fact that we would be fully automated, we would be able to pass on the savings to our market makers. |
In total, the initial funding will cover the expenses and capital outlays necessary to support this business. |
It's not easy starting an exchange. We've had to explain the difficulties to a lot of people, including some in Washington. |
Our core business continues to expand at double-digit rates as equity options and other derivative products are increasingly embraced by investors as integral components of their investment and risk management strategies. |
This whole idea didn't come from Gary and me -- we were the vehicle they used, ... and we said we are going to be the catalyst for change. |
We continue to focus our attention on absolute volume growth driven by Customer and Firm trading activity. Ultimately, the success of an exchange must be based on its acceptance by these two constituencies. I am pleased to note that ISE remains the number one venue for Customer and Firm combined trading activity in equity options. |
We delivered another strong performance in the first three months of 2006 as our average daily volume exceeded two million contracts for the second consecutive quarter. The double digit growth in our core options business fueled a 40% increase in net income once again reflecting the operating leverage that is inherent in our business. We also continued to post strong cash flow which we now share with our stockholders by virtue of the implementation of the dividend policy that we announced last year. |
We dwarf them in size and complexity. |
We've got a Silicon Valley mentality, a startup feel, long days, weekends -- that's the culture we want to promote. We've never really looked at what anybody else was going to do. |
When the markets get frothy they can disappear. When the markets are frothy is exactly when consumers need them. |
When they heard we wanted to do it with technology, it was an easy sell. |