OptionMetrics Celebrates Quarter of a Century Providing Research-Grade Financial Data and Analytics to Institutional Investors and Academics Worldwide
June 25 2024 - 7:35AM
Business Wire
First company to make high-quality historical
options datasets available to quants and researchers 25 years ago
continues to pioneer in global financial data across equities,
futures, ETFs, dividend forecasting.
OptionMetrics, the first company to compile and license clean,
accurate, easy-to-use historical end-of-day data on U.S.
exchange-traded equity and index options from January 1996 onward,
turns 25 this month. Since its founding, OptionMetrics has been the
leading provider of options analytics data, including prices,
implied volatilities (IVs), and greeks. Building upon its heritage
data sets and capabilities, the company has introduced over the
last 25 years a number of products and solutions that deliver
empirical insights across an array of global securities and
financial markets.
Founded by David Hait, Ph.D. in 1999, in the midst of the
introduction of the Euro, potential Y2K market destabilization, and
nascency of options investment strategies, OptionMetrics quietly
became the leading provider of research-grade options and implied
volatility data. Hedge funds, investment portfolios and top
business schools worldwide leveraged the company’s high-quality
data, and options went from a niche market practice to a more
standard investment strategy with volatility and VIX today
regularly cited by institutional and retail investors alike. By
2023, global options and futures open interest reached a record
1.25 billion contracts, according to Futures Industry
Association.
Since securing its reputation as the gold-standard in
high-quality historical options data in the U.S. and then Europe,
Canada, and Asia markets, OptionMetrics has steadily developed
premium options data and analytics products for commodities and
futures, equities, ETFs, implied beta, buyer/seller trading volume,
and dividend forecasting.
Today, from its headquarters in New York City (at its new
expanded offices at 1700 Broadway) and offices in Miami and London,
the OptionMetrics team of product developers, quants, analysts, and
customer support professionals serves 350+ corporate and academic
institutions across the globe. The company’s financial databases
are used by leading portfolio managers, traders, quantitative
researchers, and risk managers to construct and test investment
strategies, perform empirical research, seek alpha, and assess risk
with increased precision. OptionMetrics’ data has been used in over
a thousand papers on Social Science Research Network to analyze
everything from trading strategies and cybersecurity, to insider
trading and short selling, to the impact of extreme weather and
climate change on markets, and more.
“A tremendous amount of information on markets, equities, and
ETFs can be gleaned from options data. Over our 25 years, we’ve
continually innovated to leverage that rich data to help our
customers address opportunities presented by expanding exchanges
worldwide, ODTE options, meme stocks, the surge in futures, and the
recent rise in ETFs,” says OptionMetrics CEO David Hait, Ph.D.
“Founded on a mission of developing research-grade options data and
analytics, we remain committed to empowering institutional
investors and academics to more accurately assess risk, sharpen
calculations, and craft competitive investment strategies. Now that
we are part of the Leeds Equity Partners family, we feel we’ve just
scratched the surface on developing new data products and
services.”
Leeds Equity Partners’ investment in OptionMetrics in April 2021
continued the private equity firm’s track record of partnering with
leading financial data and information services platforms. “Our due
diligence afforded a great appreciation for OptionMetrics’ ability
to deliver compelling trade analysis, risk assessment, and
high-integrity data necessary to drive empirical research for
global investor and academic research communities,” said David
Neverson, Managing Director at Leeds Equity Partners. “On behalf of
Leeds Equity Partners, I’d like to congratulate OptionMetrics on a
highly successful 25 years. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our
partnership with the OptionMetrics team and are excited to continue
our collective work in building upon the company’s legacy of
innovation and data excellence.”
OptionMetrics products include:
- IvyDB US, considered the “gold standard” in historical options
data, as well as IvyDB Europe, IvyDB Canada, IvyDB Asia, and IvyDB
ETF to assess financial strategies in markets worldwide
- IvyDB Beta, option implied betas and correlations for
constituents of the SPY for a real-time market adjusted view of
systematic risk over traditional historical, backward-looking
beta
- IvyDB Futures, historical future option price data and
volatility surface calculations of the highest quality for the US
futures markets, to evaluate risk and test trading strategies
- IvyDB Signed Volume, data on detailed option trading volume,
assigned as buyer-initiated or seller-initiated, for insights into
options market order flows, participant activity, and directional
trading strategies
- Real-time Dividend Forecast Data with GenAI with
algorithm+analyst+ai methodology for trading, back-testing dividend
strategies, risk management and anticipating portfolio income. A
result of OptionMetrics’ acquisition of Woodseer Global and its
suite of products.
About OptionMetrics
With 25 years as the premier provider of historical options and
implied volatility data, OptionMetrics distributes its options,
futures, beta, and dividend forecast databases to leading portfolio
managers, traders, and quantitative researchers at 350+ corporate
and academic institutions worldwide to construct and test
investment strategies, perform empirical research, and assess risk.
www.optionmetrics.com, LinkedIn, Twitter
About Leeds Equity Partners
Leeds Equity is a New York-based private equity firm dedicated
exclusively to partnering with management teams in the education,
training, and information services industries (the "Knowledge
Industries"). The firm was founded in 1993 and currently manages
approximately $5 billion of capital across a broad spectrum of
companies within the Knowledge Industries. Leeds Equity seeks to
leverage its sector-focused expertise and market insights to create
long-term value for its partner companies and investors.
For additional information on Leeds Equity Partners, see
http://www.leedsequity.com/
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Hilary McCarthy 774.364.1440 Hilary@clearpointagency.com