Expansion of US Equity Options Consolidated Tape Delayed

The Options Price Reporting Authority (OPRA) delayed the go live date for doubling the data streams of its consolidated tape for equity options, following requests from the market for more time, according to a story in The Trade news. OPRA previously confirmed that it was expanding its data dissemination from a 48-line to a 96-line multicast data distribution network in a move aimed at optimal symbol balancing and line capacity utilization. OPRA’s subscribers have now requested additional test time, which the authority has granted, with the go live now set for February 5, 2024, as opposed to the previously confirmed October 5, 2023. It has also been confirmed that the next capacity test will be carried out November 18 this year, before a functional test and capacity test on January 20, 2024, three weeks before the go live. As the authority plans to scale the capacity of its distribution, the market is preparing for the significant change and putting in place measures to consume around 120 million messages a second following the go live.