Good day, everyone, and welcome to the CBOE Holdings first quarter 2017 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. [Operator Instructions] And please do note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Debbie Koopman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter conference call. On the call today, Ed Tilly, our CEO, will discuss the quarter and our strategic initiatives for 2017. Then Alan Dean, our Executive Vice President and CFO, will detail our first quarter 2017 financial results and provide updated guidance on certain financial metrics for 2017. Following their comments, we will open the call to Q&A. Also joining us for Q&A will be our President and COO, Chris Concannon; and our Chief Strategy Officer, John Deters. In addition, I'd like to point out that this presentation will include the use of several slides. We will be showing the slides and providing commentary on each. A downloadable copy of the slide presentation is available on the Investor Relations portion of our website. During our remarks, we will make some forward-looking statements which represent our current judgment on what the future may hold. And while we believe these judgments are reasonable, these forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain assumptions, risks and uncertainties. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. Please refer to our filings with the SEC for a full discussion of the factors that may affect any forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after this conference call. During the course of the call this morning, we will be referring to non-GAAP measures that are defined and reconciled in our earnings materials. We also will refer to pro forma results which are also reconciled in our earnings materials. As you know, we completed our acquisition of Bats Global Markets on February 28, 2017. The pro forma results for the information regarding the combined operations as to the Bats acquisition had occurred at the beginning of 2016, in order to provide a more meaningful discussion of our results. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Ed Tilly.

Thank you, Debbie, and good morning and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin our formal remarks, I would like to welcome Chris Concannon, our new President and COO, to his first CBOE quarterly earnings call. Many of you already know Chris and the talents he brings to the CBOE leadership team. Turning to the quarter, I'm pleased to report on a strong first quarter 2017 at CBOE Holdings, with adjusted earnings per share of $0.78, a net revenue of $193.4 million. Our first quarter performance built on last year's solid financial results and continued growth in index trading, led by record trading in SPX options. Our big news for the quarter, of course, was the completion of the acquisition of Bats Global Markets on February 28. I'll have more on that in a moment, but first we'll note that we continue to focus on our core business and maintain strong organic growth in the period leading up to and after the close. Our options volume during the first quarter was up 9% over the previous year, and our proprietary products continued to outperform the industry. We saw record trading in SPX options, which increased 15% over the first quarter 2016. VIX futures trading had its third busiest quarter to-date, and increased 18% year-over-year. We saw similar trends in April in our proprietary products. In our new lines of business from the Bats transaction, we saw first quarter market share in U.S. equities decrease by 2 percentage points against the prior year's first quarter, reflecting lower volatility this year and a record quarter last year. European equities market share was down by about 2 percentage points from the first quarter last year. And while overall global FX volume was down in the first quarter, our market share grew…

Thank you, Ed, and good morning. Before I get into the details of our first quarter results, let me point out that our GAAP or reported first quarter 2017 results include Bats for the month of March. Therefore, the year-over-year variances on a GAAP basis were largely due to the addition of Bats on March 1. To provide a more meaningful review of our business, I will speak to the combined results of CBOE and Bats for the full quarter. So my remarks today will primarily focus on our pro forma non-GAAP results, which present financial results to reflect the Bats transaction, as if it had occurred on January 1, 2016. On that basis for the combined company, we saw strong results for the quarter despite weaker trading and activity across U.S. and European equities and derivatives markets overall. Our results were primarily fueled by the strength of our proprietary index products and growth in our non-transaction revenue which offset weaker trading activity in U.S. and European equities, and we're off to a strong start on our cost synergy targets. Summarizing our pro forma adjusted results, net revenue was $265.3 million, up 4% above last year's first quarter. Operating expenses were $106.3 million, up 4%, and the operating margin increased 10 basis points versus last year's first quarter. Diluted earnings per share of $0.86 was up 25% over the prior year period. Looking at our results further, starting with net revenue, we reported increases in transaction fees, exchange services and other fees, market data fees and other revenue. Generally, we saw a mixed performance by business segment with futures achieving the largest revenue increase followed by options. U.S. and European equities were relatively flat to down as those segments faced a more challenging trading environment this year and difficult comparisons…

Thanks. At this point, we'd be happy to take questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] And it looks like our first questioner for today is going to be Richard Repetto with Sandler O'Neill.

So I guess my one question would be around the subject of volatility. Ed, the proprietary products, the VIX futures, the VIX options, they did extremely well in a period of very low volatility in the first quarter. So I was wondering if you could, again, go through sort of the explanation for that. And also, you've got the Wall Street Journal talking about low volatility. Can you give us any more insights on the outlook for the volatility situation here, low volatility situation?

Sure, Rich. Really let's take a look, bring it up a level kind of the characteristics of this market, there's some similarities that we've seen in other low volatility environments and a couple differences, which has really been the key to driving the volume in VIX this quarter compared to quarters past on SPX. So first, yes, low volatility, not new. We've had other periods that we would characterize as low vol. Highlighting by several spikes occurring really across the globe, again, not new. Upward sloping volatility surface starting at a very low level, almost single digit, up to about 17 or 18. So the surface of volatility over time is not new, but the steepness is. A couple of the differences that have been driving the different utilities out of our proprietary products, SKU is very high. Really the market telling us that while in this current environment, I'm not worried or uncertain. I am from day-to-day, but I am uncertain that there will be an event that significantly moves the market, hence the high SKU. Correlation very low. In an upward market, correlations tend to be lower than they are in downward sloping market. But this is really unusually highly low correlation. Premium harvesting strategies that we've seen people in the past employ, very aggressive now. The steepness of the volatility surface really lends itself to profitable volatility harvesting strategies. So it's really now when we looked at, we talked in the past, we've got these two products that depending on the market, our customers find great utility. So right now, it's more expensive to hedge a running market with S&P 500 puts. It takes a lot of rebalancing, the strike of the S&P 500 is changing. You've seen it. We're at all-time highs. That means there's a…

No, that's very helpful. I'm wondering whether this steepness isn't a structural difference now in the VIX term structure. But anyway, that's very helpful.

Our next questioner today is Chris Allen with Buckingham.

Just wondering if we can dig into the expense guidance a bit. The $415 million to $423 million, if we take out your first quarter results, that kind of equates to $112 million to $115 million per quarter over the rest of '17 versus $106 million on a pro forma basis. So I was just wondering, what's going to drive the sequential increase there? And then if we kind of look at it relative to 2016 and adjust for the [indiscernible] it kind of implies 4.5% to 6.5% growth. So I'm just trying to reconcile all that and think about what's going to drive the sequential expense growth from here.

Well, primarily, it's the ramp-up in our -- the resources that we need to handle the migration from the CBOE platform to the Bats platform. And our target has always been 3% to 5% on expense growth year-over-year, and so we're in that range. The range for expenses of $415 million to $423 million is intentionally a bit wide. So in the first quarter pro forma represents a time when the -- we weren't fully combined. Well, for one month, we were. So the expenses in the first quarter really can't -- aren't indicative of what we'll see the rest of the year. So we're happy with the $415 million to $423 million. It's consistent with our targets previously and we think it'll allow us to realize the operating leverage that these exchanges have enjoyed for years.

Can you give any color, though? You're saying the sequential increase may be due to preparing for the integration, but I think the synergies you talk about, Europe and headcount, you're reducing professional fees. So I'm just wondering where that spending is going to occur.

Well, I'll give you an example. So some of the headcount reduction that we experienced in the first quarter were people on the CBOE side that worked -- were working on Vector. So that's cash savings, but it really didn't impact the P&L because all the work they were doing was being capitalized. On the Bats side, as we backfill for some of the people that left CBOE or we transferred down to Kansas City, their expenses are being -- their salaries with compensation are being expensed right off the bat, so to speak and then will be later capitalized as they ramp up and are able to work on the migration of the CBOE platforms onto -- the CBOE exchanges onto the Bats platform.

Our next questioner today is by Ken Worthington with JP Morgan.

When thinking about the first stages of the integration, I think you indicated that the Bats technology for CFE switches over in February, but traders can begin requesting connectivity as early as July. So I guess, maybe from the announcement date, it's an 11-month integration. So one, why so long? Given the connectivity as early as July, would you expect to see any visible benefits from the integration in the second half of this year? And as we think about the other integrations, you mentioned that you would maybe discuss this later on. But how should we think about the laddering or the staggering of the rest of what you're going to do on the technology side?

So Ken, it's Chris. I'll be happy to answer that. Obviously, we have a model that we've used in the past quite effectively around integration of platforms starting with, obviously, the Chi-X migration and then the Direct Edge migration. What we've learned is a long lead time for clients to connect and to test is a critical part of a perfect migration. So we're using that same model of very long lead times. It also allows us to test not in production, the code that we'll launch in the new platform. So it's a tried and true model that we're going to stick to. We will be announcing a date for the C2 migration shortly. So you'll see kind of the pattern of technology migration. I think it's important to point out that the announcement around the delivery of a complex order book onto EDGX options is our down payment of integration. That complex order book is a key component that will have certain attributes you'll see in the CFE as well as in the C2 migration. So we are attempting to derisk our migration to the new technology by putting into production certain features and functionality in our other platforms on that. So as you will see, we will stick to a long lead time while we allow clients to test quite aggressively during that window. But you will see a pattern of our migration with the subsequent announcements on the migrations of not only CFE but C2, which will be announced in June.

And the next questioner is going to be Michael Carrier with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Hey good morning guys. This is Nimruk Rohan [ph] for Mike Carrier. Thanks for taking my questions. A quick question for Chris. You guys announced the alternative to the closing option. Just wondering if you can give us some additional details on how much volume you think is up for grabs. How are you looking to price the service? What kind of discount are you looking to provide maybe relative to your two biggest peers? And finally, maybe just provide some color on how this is going to affect Bats on the market data side? And I have lots of questions…

Sure. We’ll put you back in the queue to answer the other five. So let me just start. I think it's important to point out that this announcement is a reflection of what this combined company intends to do. We intend to continue to be aggressive, competitive and solve client needs. And this one, in particular, is a client need that we have heard about over the last couple years. And in the last month, we have talked to our clients extensively about how we can solve what has been a growing cost for them with regard to the primary markets and their closing cross auction. Now obviously, investors are using the closing cross as an important price forming moment of the day. And some of our competitors have priced their service aggressively to take advantage of that investors' needs at the close. Our design of this closing cross auction is very targeted to avoid disrupting price formation at the close. If you look at closely at what we're doing, is we're matching market on close orders only prior to the cutoff for the primary markets close. So to the extent we don't achieve a match for your market on close, you will still participate in the closing cross on the primary. We are not targeting limit on close orders which are really the price forming elements of the closing cross. We have not announced pricing for this, but you can assume in traditional aggressive competitive fashion, we will be quite aggressive on the price of our closing cross match. So we -- obviously, if you look at the numbers, the closing cross on the primary markets is close to just over 9% of the ADV. So it's a sizable part of the day that is not subject to the competitive dynamic that Bats brings to the intraday market of competing on price. So this is the first time we're stepping into that part of the market. We're doing it, I think, very appropriately by targeting only market on close orders and not limit on close orders. So we don't want to disrupt price formation at the close, which is an important element and an important goal that our clients have asked us to ensure.

And the next questioner is going to be Alex Kramm with UBS.

Just coming back to the expenses for a second, in particular, synergies. I think everybody is talking very positively about the traction that you're getting, the progress you're making and what you've been doing so far. But I think there was some expectation that perhaps, the ultimate size of synergies may be higher, and I don't think you talked about this yet. But where -- why are you not -- I guess, why are you holding back? Are you not comfortable enough yet? Are you not seeing enough yet? And I guess, asking differently, what would it take for you to have a comfort level to say, hey, there's $5 million, $10 million, $20 million extra? Like, what's the bar?

Well, Alex, the nature of the foundation of most of the synergies lies in the migration of the three CBOE exchanges onto the Bats platform. And the first one will be completed in early 2018. We haven't announced C2 or CBOE yet, but they're after that. And so there's -- before I can be comfortable in saying the $50 million is now $65 million or whatever, some number higher than $50 million or the $65 million, the 5-year number is some higher number, we need to get further into this migration process because things could go wrong. As you know, this is a very complex process. It could be that we underestimated the time that we need to migrate C2 and CBOE. It could be that the time is right but the resources are wrong, that we need more resources. And that would cause the synergy number to be different than we expected. So I need, we need, CBOE, Ed and Chris Concannon and I, we need to get further into this program, not just 1.5 months or 2 months and gain more confidence in our model that we built last fall that projected synergies before we can update them. It just -- it's premature to do something now. Now with that being said, the $15 million number that we have been public about, saying we thought we'd hit a $15 million run rate in 2017. And now we're at -- we're saying, we think it's going to be $20 million, haven't changed to $50 million yet because we see some of the incremental, the difference of $15 million versus $20 million really coming from savings that we thought would be in 2018. So gosh, I hope you're right, Alex. I hope that we can move those numbers up, but it's just -- it's premature right now. It would be extremely aggressive to do that right now given where we're at in the migration process.

Our next questioner is Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs.

Was hoping you could provide a little bit of color on non-transaction side of the business. So Chris, I guess, specifically, for kind of legacy Bats products, you guys have done a lot over the last couple years just moving further along on, whether FX side or the options side. So maybe an update on where we stand there, kind of the outlook for growth within that area, and any opportunities you guys see to better monetize CBOE's legacy data now as combined two companies.

Sure, Alex. First, I think as a combined company, we look at the level of mix of non-transaction revenue as an important element of the future of the business from market data to access fees, how people connect and membership fees from all of our platforms, FX to options to equities to equities in Europe. So it's an important component of the mix. And if you look at a quarter like we just had where volumes were somewhat muted in equities, both in Europe and the U.S. They are offset by growth in non-transaction revenue or just the stability of that non-transaction revenue. So we look to grow it, we look to grow it year-over-year. The interesting element of that growth and our excitement of that around the growth of non-transaction revenue is that a good portion of it has come from new sales as opposed to adjusting price on an annual basis. So as I look at our new sales, it's about 25% of the growth in our non-transaction revenue. Our market data revenue in the first quarter came from new sales similar to like batch 1, which has been -- has great success among retail firms and we're seeing a success in Europe as well as clients look to achieve a lower cost of their market data because it is price competitive compared to some of the competition. So we're seeing new sales in both our batch 1 and our top-of-book market data offering. But we are excited about growing that non-transaction revenue across the entire company. When I look at our CFE, our options business and the footprint that we have with not only the multi-listed, but the proprietary products, there's wonderful opportunities over the coming years to grow non-transaction revenue as a percent of our total revenue.

And our next questioner today is going to be Kyle Voigt with KBW.

I just need to get a follow-up on the expense guidance. So the guidance was $415 million to $423 million, but that was pro forma, right? So you posted $106 million in 1Q, which tells me you're guiding to around $103 million to $106 million per quarter for the remainder of the year. I just want to make sure I'm thinking about that correct. And – sorry Alan, if you want to –

Yes. No, that's right, Kyle. You nailed it. Yes. The guidance, the $415 million to $423 million is pro forma, full year as if the acquisition occurred Jan 1, yes.

And then I just need to squeeze in one more housekeeping one on the tax rate. The guidance was a bit lower than we expected for 2017. Can you just help us understand if that range is a good range to think about heading into 2018 and beyond? Because I know the synergies are coming from the U.S. where the higher – I think the synergies are coming from the U.S. where the tax rate's a bit higher. So does that create any headwind and you might expect the tax rate to tick up a bit in 2018 and 2019? Or is that a pretty good range?

Well, first of all, the 35% to 37% is kind of a wide range. So I think it gives us some flexibility. I feel comfortable with -- certainly with the range for 2017. For looking forward, I am trying to -- in my head, trying to roll through things that might change that could affect that tax rate. Certainly, the biggest impact on that tax rate would be coming from Congress, if that happens. So it's also possible that if our operations in Europe relative to our total business change in size, so that's one of the sources of the reduction in the effective tax rate is our foreign operations. And so that could impact the tax rate going forward as well. So if it grows, I hope it grows, then the tax rate drops, if it's -- even if it grows, but the rest of our business grows even more, then its impact is -- will be felt less. And it's kind of dangerous for me to talk about taxes right now. So I hope that helps.

And our next questioner is Chris Harris with Wells Fargo.

You guys reiterated the benefits of the merger, and some of these benefits are revenue opportunities. And so as you guys think about the outlook for the combined company in the next couple years, what maybe one or two things are you guys most excited about or you think has the most impact to really drive incremental revenue for the pro forma company?

Yes, let me -- thanks, Chris, good question. Let me kind of tee up. First, it was really formalizing from CBOE and recognizing the talent that has come into CBOE and the infrastructure around a division, where in my prepared remarks, multi-asset solutions division, and that really is our ability to focus the institution, indexing data analytics and execution services. And John Deters is here who heads up that division. So I think what I'd like him to do is just kind of outline the early stage in building his group and then what some of the first couple targets on revenue synergies, and I'd invite Chris to jump in as well.

Yes, thanks, Ed. This is John Deters. So I'll give a little perspective on multi-asset solutions. As Ed said in his earlier remarks, the creation of that unit is designed to capture opportunities using the legacy CBOE innovation processes, capture those opportunities across our full span of platforms, full span of geographies and asset classes. And where we see those opportunities really arising, first, in the information solution silo with the multi-asset solutions. That's indexes, data and analytics and execution services. All of these are product sets or things that we at CBOE and at Bats have quite a bit of experience with but we see a tremendous amount of upside in combining asset classes and geographic exposures to create new products. And then in the research and product development silos, we see really kind of an accelerated ability to produce new proprietary product. Again, by combining the exposures we get from our span of markets and in channeling those exposures back into the appropriate trading venues, we think we've got tremendous opportunity for new proprietary products there. I'm going to also say, just part of the question was, where do we see the, potentially the greatest opportunity as a combined business. And we've talked about this before and it certainly merits highlighting is the opportunity internationally to channel our proprietary products to new customers. How does that get realized? Well, it starts with replatforming of our futures market. And we've always said that we think there's tremendous opportunity there. It's a very global product, our VIX futures, in particular. And it's today, a 24x5 marketplace by having the latest cutting edge technology that the futures market globally expects to have. We will see, I think, a really impressive growth in our futures product. And then in the sales effort, just knocking on doors, using the strong sales force that the Bats team has in London, to communicate and educate around our proprietary products and describe how access is achieved from non-U. S. locations. We think those are tremendous opportunities for us and we think we've already seen really great execution by the team in just a couple months since we've closed the deal.

Yes, let me chime in, I think, a little bit on that sales effort and the coordination. Immediately, with the operation in London and being able to leverage what Mark Hemsley has built there. Early days really led to some terrific leads. I think we're going to see that show up in SPX options and VIX options and the ETH sessions. And those were a direct result of the coordinated effort, both from the New York business development team and Mark Hemsley and his group. So those are probably -- that's the lowest hanging fruit. And then the infrastructure in place that John alluded to in being able to execute on indexing ideas, investment ideas, product rollout, education, data, enhanced market data and continuing that loop, that's really what we talked about in our early days right around the announcement. So kind of give you some idea of what we see going forward.

And the next questioner is going to be Vincent Hung with Autonomous.

So you continue to enjoy strong growth in the FX option complex. Can you provide some more detail around the structural growth you're experiencing there in terms of maybe new users or new use cases? And how much of the success of SPX is linked to the success of VIX?

So first, really the growth in SPX is – you first have to look across, what is it that we're offering in a listed market which is really unique to allow an investor to pinpoint their needs? And I think no greater example than the SPX complex. So of course, we have the third Friday AM-settled contract, really the flagship, that's the original SPX contract. And we offer PM-settled now weekly SPX options with Monday, Wednesday and Friday expire. We offer SPX options that expire last business day of the month, and of course, customized FLEX options. But really, the growth and the utility in this market, in this low vol market, has really been the SPX Weeklys. And which now, in first quarter, account for about 43%, 44% of total SPX options traded, up from about 34% a year ago. So it really is in this low vol, back to that premium harvesting strategy, short dated options, the ability to roll three days a week in the listed marketplace. That flexibility, that ability to pinpoint specific dates has found great utility. So that's really the SPX story. Again, it's weekly, it's access, it's multiple expirations and all in a listed marketplace, a concentration of liquidity, liquidity formation here at CBOE, unlike any other broad-based index in the country.

And our next questioner today is going to be Richard Repetto with Sandler O'Neill.

Yes, just got a follow-up on the Bats market close order for Chris. So you sort of educated us when you're at Bats on the auctions, the open and the close and how much the volume and the pricing. But I guess, the question is anyway, what's the breakout between market and limited orders on the close? And then, what's to prevent if you are successful other exchanges from copying sort of this pre-auction mechanism?

Great question. Obviously, Rich, the mix of limit on close and market on close does change during times of the year and certainly, key moments. But right now, the market on close is not the biggest portion of the close, limit on close is a larger size. And it goes to our point that we aren't disrupting price formation. We're lowering the cost of the close to our clients. When I look at the competitive response here, if folks want to compete with our closing cross on our listed products which have been growing quite aggressively, they're free to compete because ours is not priced too high. So we already price our closing cross with our flank in mind of people trying to compete with our close. Today, brokers, many brokers offer a match in market on close. So we're not doing anything unique in the marketplace. I think our offering is going to be a broader set of clients, obviously, than a single broker offering to match market on close orders at a lower cost to their clients. But so this is not something new to the market. I think the magnitude of it and the reach and breadth of it to all of our clients is unique in terms of matching market on close prior to the cutoff for the closing cross on the primary market.

So if you were successful, the impact would be -- do you think the impact would be felt more by the brokers then than sort of the closing dominant exchanges?

No. In fact, the impact will be felt by the primary markets and the level of market on closes that they receive. So it is not designed to compete with brokers. Brokers are free to continue to match of their own clients' market on close orders without sending them to the close as they do today. But this gives the industry, obviously, an alternative on their market on close orders to check to see if they can get a match, save a great deal of money and then forward those orders onto the close if they don't receive a match. So it is targeted to compete with the primary markets. We're comfortable with our position on our own closing cross given how cheap we offer it to the industry today.

And our next questioner today is Vincent Hung with Autonomous.

Just a follow-up. There's been a lot of discussion in the press about this large trading VIX calls. Is there anything you can say about this and anything around fiscal customer concentration?

Sorry, the question was on the large trader index calls?

Yes, the one that they call $0.50.

Well, I referenced the premium-specific hedging that we're seeing now. And I think rather than to speculate on the strategy, depending on the exposure of that customer, if you look at really, the most, right now, efficient way to hedge exposure in the 500 is an out of the money VIX call. Again, because it's not strike-specific of the S&P 500. $0.50 premium, not the $0.50 trader, the $0.50 premium calls having great utility, if your fear is reflected in the SKU, meaning how expensive out of the money puts are relative to at the money or calls for that instance. And this is really an efficient hedge. So it's premium -- think about the hedge as premium-specific, not strike-specific. You have a contract VIX, what I said earlier, cannot go to 0. So even if we're in single digit realized volatility, you can just look at a premium level, find a call that's roughly $0.50. You know your risk, you get bang for your buck, the entire exposure, entire term of that contract. So it's an incredibly powerful hedging tool. And I think the person you're referring to is finding great utility in a very inexpensive means to hedge exposure in the 500. So that's the -- what we're picking up from The Street, we're seeing that pattern, we're seeing those rolls. And that again, it is premium-specific, not strike-specific. I don't know if that helps, but that's really the way I look at VIX compared to out of the money put hedging in the S&P 500, which requires rolling and strike adjustment. That's a really, really big difference.

And I'd say -- this is John Deters. A key here, just a very baseline principle is that there's a high adverse correlation between the S&P 500 and VIX. So the insurance policy that I described that a market participant derives from purchasing VIX calls, it's a very effective hedge for downward changes in the S&P 500.

And our next questioner today is Alex Kramm with UBS.

Just wanted to follow-up with Chris again on the whole closing cross thing. I know you've said a lot already, but just one more. Now I think over the last couple of years, you've also been trying very much so to build the listings business and been trying to do some very attractive deals with ETF providers. And I think part of that idea was to actually get the premium business on the close. And I would say, maybe to some degree, you've had limited success, so now you're turning around, you're being aggressive on the close and trying to steal the business away from the others. So just my question, how is that not talking out of both sides of your mouth? I know you said some things to Rich already with that regard, but just wanted to see like what the strategy is like. Are you an aggressor or not, considering that you've also tried to get premium business in the past?

So Alex, great question. I'm going to focus on your term “limited success” because I can't help myself. It is astounding success that we've had in ETF listings. As a company, a standalone company called Bats and now, as CBOE, we think our success is going to accelerate. Conversations that we're having with the ETF issuers has been extraordinary before the close and now, after the close, the offerings that we can offer them. So our listing business is what I call explosive at this point. We're now over 30% of the new issues in this year alone and that's been accelerating. So certainly, our success is something to be impressive -- is impressive and we plan to continue that success. Now if you look at how the closing cross works in single name corporates versus ETFs, obviously, the single name corporates are much larger. They produce a much larger closing cross than typically ETFs will. Now there's some very high-volume ETFs that have very large closing crosses. But comparison, a corporate versus ETF, the closing cross is much larger on the corporates. So we are not only aggressively listing a product and having successful closing crosses on our own platform, we have also priced our closing cross to be very competitive and assume that someone can compete with us just as we are going to compete with the other primary markets. But again, we're competing with a much larger cross in the corporate closing cross and we will continue to be aggressive on both fronts, our listing front as well as competing with the corporate listings and their closing crosses. So hopefully that answers your question that we are having great success in our listing business. We're certainly -- this is not indicative of us throwing our arms up and saying, we're going to now compete with the closing cross. This is really client demand. Our clients have demanded of us to offer a competing product. We limited that product because of our concern around price formation and the close. We refused to disrupt price formation and the close on the primary market, but we can reduce our clients' costs of participation at the close by this offering. So again, not limited success, wild success on our ETF offering and very bullish about the closing cross that we offer at, what I call, competitive rate. And we are very bullish on our closing cross offering competing against the primary markets, mostly because of the client demand for the product. End of Q&A

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Deb Koopman for any closing remarks.

Thank you. Thank you, everybody. That concludes the call. Thank you everybody for your interest, and we look forward to updating you as we move forward.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.