Optionality – Re-Imagining Options Trading

"Why does the options trading process continue to be so complicated for retail traders?" thought Alec Baum and Adam Castelbaum, co-founders of Optionality. The co-founders and lifelong friends noticed that adjacent industries had nailed user-friendly mobile experiences. And in their social circles, they saw the trend in more people wanting to jump into the stock market, particularly options trading.

Legacy systems were built more for professional options traders, said Baum – an issue he said intimidated and frustrated new and casual options traders. So, they sought to build a simple, user friendly mobile experience for options trading, and in the summer of 2020, Optionality was founded.

"Optionality re-imagines the entire trading process for casual traders," Baum said. Using Optionality, users are able to compare multiple, potential trades in a pre-packaged menu, pre-filtered for liquidity and expiration.

"Our proprietary mobile platform is focused on increasing the transparency and accessibility of the options trading space, while at the same time providing helpful and useful data," Castelbaum said.

Optionality subscribes to Cboe EDGX Exchange data to help provide that transparency to users. "Speed and accuracy are everything, so using Cboe's real-time market data allows us to show our users accurate prices so they can remain agile and in tune with the market," Baum said.

Optionality is driven to create the optimal user experience no matter the user's risk tolerance. "We feature a menu of pre-packaged spreads to help casual traders, and for users with more active positions, we have built proprietary 'auto-close technology' to help automatically close positions prior to expiration," Baum said.

Additionally, there is no shortage of new features the Optionality team is developing. "We are already hard at work on community engagement upgrades like and in-app chat, and market expansion opportunities, like cryptocurrency," Baum said.

The Optionality team feels fortunate to have passionate employees and helpful advisors that have established a fun and collaborative workplace culture.

Optionality is available on iOS and Android via the Apple or Google Play store, respectively. You can learn more about Optionality by following them on Instagram @optionalityapp.

Endex: The Social Index App

"There's gotta be a better way to do this," thought Brittany Wright and Kevin Loo, co-founders of Endex. The two investment professionals had been sharing stock information with family and friends via a group chat — information that included weights, risk summaries and timing. While keeping all that information in a notes app, they knew there had to be a better way of doing it. They also wondered if they could be compensated for their contributions.

After listening to the needs of many investors, Wright and Loo decided to quit their jobs to pursue Endex full-time.

Your Index Playlist

Endex's broker-agnostic, social-investment platform enables users to create, share and copy custom stock indexes (endexes).

"You can think of an Endex like a playlist of stocks," said Loo. "On Spotify you can create themed playlists based on genre, mood or activity, and easily share them with other listeners."

Endex provides a similar model in which users can create custom stock portfolios based on anything from industry, technology or ESG to additional value considerations, and easily share them with other investors.

The ability to create and share custom portfolios enables investors to discover and copy strategies that match their interests, values, risk tolerance and other investment needs. Everything about Endex is customizable from the name, description and privacy to the individual stock components, weighting methodology and tags.

Because Endex is broker agnostic, users can even copy custom stock portfolios directly through their current brokerages via Endex's integrations.

Making Money

Users who create quality content and Endexes can monetize their profiles through subscriptions and tips, for when the winners are feeling particularly generous.

Endex also rewards its users by giving them a percentage of Endex's revenue when their Endex reaches the app's leaderboard.

Getting Real (Time)

Endex needs real-time data for its end users and subscribes to Cboe's U.S. equities data for top-of-book quotations, matched trade price, volume and execution time of stocks.

"By leveraging the Cboe EDGX Top Feed's low bandwidth and processing requirements, we are able to give our users seamless, accurate and timely information about the market," said Loo.

Looking Forward

Endex is continuing to improve its offering. Currently they are working on providing key metrics, including the Sharpe, Sortino, Return Retracement Ratios, for transparency into a portfolio's or strategy's past performance. Additionally, Endex will be rolling out feature-paired integrations with some of the top U.S. brokerages that offer fractional share trading.

SkinGame: Profitable trading, verified

SkinGame was designed by Founder/CEO Kevin Blount after years of trading stocks with the assistance of social media platforms. The ups and downs of trading gave Kevin two key observations. First, traders on social media lack credibility and transparency. And second, only a small percentage of social media personalities are successful investors, and it is unclear which ones turn a profit.

To tackle these issues, Kevin focused on one question, "What is each trader's track record?"

While such data exists for professional analysts, it was missing from social media. And thus, SkinGame was created.

SkinGame is the first social media app to measure the accuracy of stock-specific opinions, in a calculated track record, without brokerage links.

"Trading is difficult," said Blount. "We are looking to help the retail trader make informed investing decisions with the guidance of proven, profitable traders," he said.

"At the same time, we promote the most successful investors who are consistently making the right calls," he said.

Calculating Success

SkinGame's Smart User feature is the backbone of the app. All bullish and bearish opinions are stamped with a user-defined timeframe, and then recorded in a personalized Smart User profile.

Smart User data is used to calculate the success rate and average return for each trader's predictions. The top 30% of traders are labeled Smart Users, and the very top traders are ranked in a daily leaderboard.

The app provides a Smart User analysis for each trader and stock-specific message boards to discuss up-to-date trading ideas.

The competition is serious, but the app is designed to be fun with the option to upload gifs, photos and videos.

Current and Accurate Data

SkinGame uses Cboe U.S. equities data to provide real-time data.

"Real-time stock quotes from Cboe are a requirement to stay updated on market movements with current and accurate data for every ticker asset," said Blount.

SkinGame provides customized watchlists, candlestick charts, sentiment data, and long-term price targets for all U.S. equities and Bitcoin.

Blount said SkinGame is working on adding all major cryptocurrencies to the app as well as expanding into additional global markets.

Try It for Free

The SkinGame app is free and is available for iOS and Android. Data from the app is not sold to financial institutions.

Rakuten Trade — the forefront of digital trading in Malaysia

Rakuten Trade started with one mission in mind — provide the comforts of a traditional broker while disrupting the industry, bringing everything online with the lowest brokerage fees in town.

A joint venture between a Malaysian company — Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad — and a Japanese one — Rakuten Securities — Rakuten Trade was the first to offer local investors a completely digital trading platform.

"Adopting a fintech business model successfully reduced the barriers to trading for our customers," said Mr. Kazumasa Mise, CEO at Rakuten Trade.

"We've made access to investing much easier," said Mise. "Our efforts continue to be well received among local investors especially with young adults looking to dip their toes into the investment pool."

Cash Upfront

The Cash Upfront account is Rakuten Trade's most popular product. Approximately 80% of Rakuten Trade accounts are Cash Upfront accounts. Cash Upfront trading operates like a debit card, allowing you to trade using only the cash available in your account.

"This means your trades from the account are fully funded by the deposits you make into your Cash Upfront account while the remaining balance is placed in a Trust account held by Kenanga Investment Bank," said Mise.

Recently Rakuten Trade expanded its digital trading services to include foreign equity trading on its next generation Cash Upfront account. Rakuten Trade clients can now trade in Malaysia and the U.S. via the same familiar trading platform with the same low brokerage rates.

U.S. Markets

The U.S. equities market is the first foreign market Rakuten Trade has offered on its platform. To power the company's foray into the U.S. markets, Rakuten Trade takes the Cboe One Feed. The Cboe One Feed comprises data from Cboe's four U.S. equities exchanges to provide a broad view of the U.S. equities market.

Rakuten Trade feeds Cboe's market data through a vendor and distributes it to its retail clients.

Innovating for Customers

Rakuten Trade strives to provide convenience to investors with easy-to-use and innovative services and a client-first mindset. The company continues to expand its offering to add value to its customers that includes a reward eco-system, access to digital execution and settlement of trades, as well as research reports and educational content.

TRADANTS | WSOT.com - A Global Trading Game

TRADANTS was established in July 2021 with the bold vision to democratise capital markets by merging financial trading, esports and skill-gaming into an epic global game.

With the launch of its WSOT.com (World Series of Trading) platform, traders around the world can hone their trading skills by competing against each other in a series of free-access paper trading tournaments.

WSOT.com

WSOT.com allows its users, also known as ‘playtraders,' to compete within a wide range of financial instruments and asset classes including forex, equities, indices, cryptos, precious metals and commodities.

Playtraders compete to win real cash prizes without investing their funds by participating in zero-spread competitions.

"We are also developing a proprietary NFT Marketplace where tournament winners can collect and exchange unique pieces of art using the popular blockchain technology," said Lars Gottwik, Founder & CEO of TRADANTS GmbH. This will allow WSOT.com to offer an immersive digital experience to a highly engaged audience interested in gaming, art and online financial trading.

TRADANTS uses Cboe U.S. and European equity feeds as a source of real-time data for its WSOT.com Playtrading arena. Despite no real executions happening in the trading tournaments, the furious battle between playtraders for the prize pools totaling more than $1,000,000 creates exciting real-time trading experiences.

"Thanks to the strategic collaboration between Cboe and TRADANTS, skill-gaming tournaments meet the world's biggest exchanges for real-time play on WSOT.com," said Gottwik.

The TRADANTS Roadmap

TRADANTS has a very ambitious product development roadmap for WSOT.com that includes membership level upgrades for registered users, teamplay functionality, organisation of large-scale, post-Covid-19 physical events, the release of Pro Insights video series, and the launch of a proprietary mobile trading application.

Gottwik said everyone who wants to join the trading gamification journey is more than welcome to reach out and discuss a potential partnership. "We have an audience of fintech early-adopters, gamers and retail investors, and WSOT.com offers sponsorship and advertising opportunities covering a wide range of media formats," he added.

Zingeroo – Competitive, Real-Life Trading

Zingeroo's path to existence had a less than usual beginning. The idea started after a debate among siblings. CEO/Founder Zoë Barry was working for a hedge fund when she found herself in a debate about the direction of the stock market with her brothers — college students taking economics courses.

To settle the debate, Barry tried gifting a competitive, social trading experience to her brothers that Christmas…only to find one didn't exist.

"How could there not be a way to do real-money trading, banter with each other, and track a leaderboard of individual trades?" Barry said about the experience.

"We wanted to compete and track performance on individual trades. I thought the idea was so obvious; it was like inventing the Post-It^® Note. Voila, Zingeroo was born," she said.

Now Zingeroo seeks to revolutionize competitive and social trading. Aimed at current and new traders, the Zingeroo app is an all-in-one, real-time trading platform. Users can make equity and options trades, build trading teams and compete with friends.

Real-Time Data

Real-time data was a must for this app. Zingeroo partnered with Cboe to offer U.S. options and equities data from Cboe's exchanges. Cboe's real-time quote and trade data makes it possible for Zingeroo to provide accurate and timely market data for its users.

Let the Competition Begin

Users can compete in Zingeroo through two features: Zingeroo Zones and Zingeroo Bullpens + Chats.

Zingeroo Zones are optional, free events users can enter to see how their portfolio competes against other users. Participants can enter their entire portfolios for the competition or select their top stocks and options positions. Coming soon, there will be various sector-specific Zones.

Zingeroo Bullpens + Chat is the company's solution to providing users the opportunity to truly invest with their friends. The feature allows you to create a private area for your group. Within a Bullpen, users can build a Zone, similar to the Zingeroo Zones, but only accessible to members of that Bullpen.

An in-app chat feature provides the ability to share trading knowledge, stay up to date on shared news and exchange friendly banter with fellow Zone participants.

Zingeroo continues to work on enhancements to improve the app, including new Zone types and $0 commission equity trades.

Zingeroo is a fully licensed broker-dealer. All securities and investments are offered to self-directed customers by Z-Squared. Z-Squared is a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ''FINRA."

Polygon.io – Market Data APIs

Polygon.io was founded out of a need for market data APIs. In 2016, Polygon's founder and CEO set out to apply machine learning to market movements, but he quickly realized the only pricing data available to individual developers via an API at that time was either outdated or too expensive.

Upon that realization, Polygon was born. Now Polygon's mission is to advocate for developers by making market data more accessible.

API Availability

Polygon enables some of the largest technology and financial firms in the world to easily access market data.

Partnering with Cboe Global Markets, Polygon sources Cboe's EDGX Exchange data for its Enterprise U.S. Equities APIs.

"We use Cboe's price data to offer a full suite of financial market information to fintech startups and companies wanting to display U.S. Equity data within websites and mobile applications," said Jack Bell, Head of Business Development. "We're a one-stop-shop for all of the data needed to create the next generation of fintech applications," he said.

Polygon also supports APIs for U.S. Options, Forex, and Cryptocurrencies.

Data from Polygon APIs include real-time and historical trades, quotes, and reference data.

Keeping the Developer in Mind

Polygon's most popular product is its Stocks Developer subscription. This API allows non-professionals to access real-time and historical tick data, company financials, news, and much more. The subscription is available through easy-to-use RESTful APIs and Websocket streams.

Future Enhancements

Polygon plans to expand into additional asset classes and will start by offering self-serve OPRA data APIs for both real-time and historical options data. Polygon's official options products are set to release by the end of 2021.

Investagrams – Changing the Landscape

The mission for Investagrams is clear — change the financial landscape in the Philippines.

With less than 1% of the Filipino population investing in the stock market, Investagrams set forth to change that by launching their financial charting platform in 2014.

"Day by day, we are enabling more and more Filipinos to invest in the financial markets by providing the best charting platform in the country, top-notch educational courses on investment — and more than anything — a community geared toward holistic improvement," said JC Bisnar, CEO.

Charting Platform

Investagrams' charting platform is built for both beginning and experienced traders, offering market tools for equities in the Philippines, U.S., and Singapore, to cryptocurrencies, to FOREX, and to commodities.

Within their platform users can monitor, screen, and systematically journal their trades to significantly improve a trader's performance.

"Our users spend 80% of their time in our platform, analyzing the market, creating trade plans, and improving their craft to succeed," said Bisnar. "We have incorporated and built multiple features including watchlists for multiple markets, a bull and bear meter, watcher alerts set by technical indicators, a screener for both fundamental and technical factors, and a very reliable chart to help you with all your trading paraphernalia." he said.

Making the U.S. Market Accessible

"Cboe's real-time BZX Top exchange data delivered via the cloud is our gateway to reaching greater heights by offering one of the most heavily traded financial markets in our charting and analytical tools," said Bisnar. "We are inviting more users globally to give our charting platform a try and make better informed decisions to succeed in the U.S. equities market."

Investagrams is one of the first platforms to take real-time Cboe U.S. equities data via the cloud.

Getting Investors Going

Investagrams offers services beyond their charting platform. The company has multiple educational courses, a social community, and a virtual trading platform that even includes a game to help users test their trading strategies and compete with one another. The best part — most of these are for free.

Bisnar says "Investagrams is looking at new features while holistically improving its existing features. Compatibility with new data, empowering users to chart, trade, and monitor multiple markets worldwide all in one platform are just some of our projects in the pipeline.

"We are inviting everyone to experience our platform, accessible both via website and via our mobile app" said Bisnar. "May your trading success start with Investagrams."

ORTEX - Make smarter trades with the stock data and ideas platform

Investors looking for timely and accurate data sets, unique analysis and trading ideas should turn to ORTEX.

ORTEX is a platform created from the recognition that investors needed help keeping track of all the moving parts of their stock investments.

"There were so many unique data set offerings emerging," said Peter Hillerberg, co-founder of ORTEX. "We knew that by combining and integrating that data, we could provide customers with a clearer picture of what was happening in the markets, particularly with their own investments," said Hillerberg.

Popular Data Sets

The ORTEX platform offers dozens of data sets to its users. The most popular being its short-term trading signals, which uses all ORTEX's data sets in infinite combinations to deliver truly unique alpha-generating returns.

The company's short-interest data is also popular with users and is derived from the world's largest pool of prime brokers/broker dealers who submit their daily inventory.

"We display all other available metrics such as flagged short interest in Europe and exchange-released short interest in the U.S. to give a complete overview of short sentiment," said Hillerberg.

Real-Time Equities Data

ORTEX uses Cboe BZX U.S. Equities Exchange and European Equities top-of-book data to keep users informed of moves in the market.

"Real-time, intraday data is important to keep our investors up-to-date on what's happening in the markets at any given time," said Hillerberg.

Vast Data & Analysis

Additional data sets provided by ORTEX include corporate and macro events, holdings, index rebalancing, analyst estimates, live index and commodity pricing, and correlation analysis of peers, currency exposure and commodities.

Fundamentals, charting, and screening are also key features of the ORTEX platform.

While ORTEX has built a robust, data-intensive platform, the company plans to provide more data and enhancements in the future.

A new interface will be released in the second quarter of 2021, and the company is adding portfolio integration, stock scores, index rebalance analysis, and a U.S. order book to its offering.

Atom Finance - Investment research tools for all

Atom Finance provides a range of cutting-edge investment research tools and content to retail investors. Eric Shoykhet, Founder and CEO launched Atom in 2018 after recognizing a large gap in investment research landscape. Shoykhet noticed existing solutions were either too simple for thoughtful analysis or too expensive for individual investors.

"We sought to build a platform that was not only accessible from a cost standpoint but also incorporated the functionality of professional investment research tools," Shoykhet said. "We believe we can provide that same institutional-quality experience to everyone."

Atom's services are available as a web-based platform and mobile app. Features of the platform include a digital sandbox where users can create financial models instantly, pre-populated with consensus projections; as well as X-Ray, a powerful search tool to help users find references to keywords across news articles, SEC filings, transcripts and more. Users can also collaborate with fellow investors to share important insights with Atom's discussion boards and group chat functionality.

Atom's most popular service is its Portfolio Integration tool. Through Portfolio, users can link their existing investment accounts and see real-time P&L, portfolio statistics, diversification and more. This portfolio information is enhanced by Atom's suite of institutional tools and data.

Atom Finance leverages Cboe's exchange data to provide real-time quotes of U.S. equities for its users. These quotes enable various functions within Atom's research platform including price alerts, charting and valuation models.

"We depend on the reliability and accuracy of Cboe's market data to ensure a consistent user experience for our customers," Shoykhet said.

The team at Atom Finance recently completed Series A funding and is working on new content and collaboration features that will make the platform even more enticing. They're also looking to expand their team in Brooklyn, New York.

Ninety Nine - Zero commission investing is coming to Europe

Started in September 2018 by two Spanish entrepreneurs living in the U.S., Ninety Nine was created with the mission of making financial markets accessible to 99% of the population by removing the barriers of complexity, transparency and cost.

Having grown tired of the high commissions traditional brokers were charging, Ninety Nine identified the opportunity to create a commission-free brokerage model.

"For non-professional retail customers, commissions drain a big percentage - if not all - of the profits earned on investments," said Mr. Javier Sanz. "This practice was the main reason many people saw investing in the stock market as something restricted to the privileged few."

Ninety Nine has sought to change this by introducing a commission-free broker model that eliminates frictions and allows investors of all sizes to save more money.

"High commissions affect people with big pockets too," said Mr. Javier Sanz. "When an investor wants to trade larger quantities, the commissions vary as a function of size. This translates to the disproportionate and constant payment of an excessive ‘tax' to financial middlemen that could be substantially reduced by the use of technology."

The commission-free proposal has proven Ninety Nine's most popular feature with a simple and intuitive interface. Cboe's low-cost market data enables Ninety Nine to keep its costs in check. Ninety Nine uses Cboe's European and U.S market data to provide customers with access to real-time prices via iOS and Android apps.

"Traditional players like to complicate the user experience," said Mr. Javier Sanz. "We believe that in today's world it's all about keeping things simple with clear value propositions and outstanding customer service."

Ninety Nine will soon be releasing an online broker feature which will offer commission free trading of both European and US stocks. Other asset classes will be progressively added.

What's next?

Moving forward, Ninety Nine is expanding their commission-free trading model across all 28 countries in the EU.