Thomas Gallagher
Analyst · William Blair
Yes, I'll pick up with that, Shelly. Thank you. We've made significant progress on 2 fronts, our Bloomberg Financial Futures products and our agricultural futures. On Bloomberg, we're pleased with where we stand today. Screens are lit, and we have 4 clearing members and 4 market makers active and connected. Retail distribution was a key milestone. And as we mentioned earlier, that's now happening as our Bloomberg Tini B500 and Tini B100 equity index futures are available on NinjaTrader. We expect additional brokerage platforms to begin offering these retail-focused products in Q4 of this year. I want to take a moment to speak about why we believe these products will succeed over time. We're bringing a differentiated product to market, and it's built to work better for everyone who trades it, not just the exchange. That means smaller notional sizes, no exchange fees for retail traders, and free market data. Just a reminder on the big picture. On the big picture, we have a 10-year exclusive license with Bloomberg to list index futures, options on futures, and cash index options based on the B500, the B100, B500 volatility indices in North and South America. Success for MIAX equates to 3 things: expanding distribution, growing volumes, and improving capture rates over time. It's still very, very early, and we believe this is a significant opportunity to disrupt this category. We also have a growing agricultural futures product pipeline and recently launched 4 new physically settled fertilizer contracts in response to member demand. We expect more products will come as we build on decades-long relationships with our MIAX Futures Exchange members. We also recently announced OCC clearing membership and a $40 million capital increase for our FCM, Dorman Trading, bringing its adjusted net capital to $67 million. That capital supports larger volumes and new client growth as futures activity on our platform expands, including clearing for Bloomberg products that trade on our MIAX Futures Exchange. It also supports our FCM's customers across all the exchanges it serves. We're investing to strengthen and position our FCM as a well-capitalized partner for futures market participants. And let's be clear, a key benefit of our FCM joining the OCC is that, retail brokers have an additional path to access our Bloomberg equity index futures, trading on our MIAX Futures Exchange. Now I want to spend a few minutes on how our technology adapts to the different markets we serve. Our technology moat continues to set us apart. We built it in-house, and we control it. Our options, futures, and equities exchanges are built on a unified technology foundation. That allows us to scale cost effectively across asset classes while having the flexibility to match the unique functional and performance characteristics of each specific market model we employ. We also have the ability to mix and match between on-prem and cloud solutions to further maximize our cost savings. Four strengths define our technology: low latency, high throughput, determinism, and reliability. Different market models across asset classes demand varying degrees of ultra-low latency, throughput, and determinism. This allows our customers to reliably count on MIAX systems, even during periods of market stress or high volatility. Knowing how a system will react during these conditions allows traders to take more risk with deeper and tighter markets. For example, on MIAX Options, our latency is industry-leading at just 36 microseconds at the 99.9 percentile, providing a maximum of 32 million quotes per second with a 99.999% operational uptime since inception. Coupled with our built-in risk protections, this allows a market maker to be more aggressive while they take a more defensive posture on other exchanges. Turning to new products. The environment is moving quickly, and our regulators have been clear that they're embracing speed and innovation in our industry. We think that's constructive, and we welcome it. Today, we have all the pieces in place to act. SEC registered options and equities exchanges, a CFTC registered futures exchange and clearing house, an FCM, 2 international exchanges, and our technology stack. We're in a great position to evaluate and launch new products as demand develops, both domestically and internationally. Building on these pieces, we will file with the SEC to list cash-settled binary index options, which will include our licensed Bloomberg indices. We will also file with the SEC to list cash-settled binary KPI options. Again, cash-settled binary KPI options. A number of other significant developments have occurred in our markets this year, including the approval of certain types of perpetual futures, tokenization, various types of event contracts, and extended trading hours in both options and equities. Let me speak for a moment on perpetuals. Regarding perpetuals, our Onyx Futures platform could support them with a few technology enhancements. We see them as a possible extension of our product offerings and an opportunity, not a replacement. We do not believe perps are having an impact on industry options volume, which we believe and we confirm continue to grow, and we do not see evidence of any cannibalization. On the other emerging areas, such as tokenization, extended trading hours, and prediction markets, we recognize that market structure is evolving and that customers in the industry are increasingly focused on them. On predictions markets, our 10% stake in Rothera gives us an additional way to participate. So whether in perps, tokenization, or other asset classes, we will move decisively and be prepared to commit capital when demand warrants and clarity emerges. And that's how we're proceeding. Keep executing on the strategy that got us here and stay ready to move on what's next. Now, as I close, it's a dynamic and exciting time in our industry here at MIAX. We continue to execute the strategy that we laid out when we entered the public markets, safely build, launch, and operate exchanges, and respond to what our customers want. This approach has driven strong revenue growth and margin expansion since going public. In retail futures, we believe there's a potential for growth that follows a path similar to what we saw in retail options. Our near-term priorities are clear. Roll out new functionality across our options exchanges and the Sapphire trading floor, bring competition to financial markets and Financial Futures with Bloomberg, meet institutional demands in our agricultural futures, and bring new products to market. We're making progress on all of these priorities. The tailwinds that accelerate our growth over the last few years are intact, and we have the flexibility to embrace new opportunities as they develop. I'm as excited about the opportunities in front of us today as I've been at any point since we started MIAX. So thanks again for joining us. Doug and Shelly are here with me and Lance, and we can start our Q&A, operator.