OREANDA-NEWS. The Chicago Board Options Exchange® (CBOE®) today announced plans to broaden data distribution to investors who want to track and trade options on the widely followed MSCI Emerging Markets (ticker symbol: MXEF) and MSCI EAFE (ticker symbol: MXEA) Indexes.

Beginning in the third quarter, CBOE plans to make real-time values for the underlying MSCI Emerging Markets and MSCI EAFE Indexes available to broker-dealers through CBOE’s Market Data Express service. CBOE’s data distribution is intended to supplement MSCI’s distribution service, which focuses on institutional trading desks, by expanding the distribution of certain MSCI index data to broker-dealers and their customers. 

Under an agreement with MSCI Inc., cash-settled, European-style options on the MSCI Indexes have been listed for trading in the U.S. on CBOE since April 2015. IMC Financial Markets serves as the Electronic Designated Primary Market-Maker (E-DPM) for the MSCI options contracts.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index and the MSCI EAFE Index add a significant international dimension to CBOE’s index options franchise:

  • The MSCI Emerging Markets Index captures large- and mid-cap representation across 23 emerging-market countries. With over 800 constituents, the index covers approximately 85 percent of the free-float-adjusted market capitalization in each country.
  • The MSCI EAFE Index is recognized as the pre-eminent benchmark in the United States to measure international equity performance. It comprises MSCI country indexes that represent developed markets outside of North America: Europe, Australasia and the Far East.

About CBOE
CBOE, the largest U.S. options exchange and creator of listed options, continues to set the bar for options and volatility trading through product innovation, trading technology and investor education. CBOE Holdings offers equity, index and ETP options, including proprietary products, such as options and futures on the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX Index) and S&P 500 options (SPX), the most active U.S. index option. Other products engineered by CBOE include equity options, security index options, Weeklys options, FLEX options and benchmark products such as the CBOE S&P 500 BuyWrite Index (BXM).