June 10, 2009
Dow Jones
By Daniel Hausmann

New York -- Ballista Holdings has picked up $15 million in growth funding from Susquehanna Growth Equity LLP, Metropolitan Equity Partners and three strategic investors...Susquehanna joined Morgan Stanley, Knight Capital Group and International Securities Exchange in leading the Series D as new investors...Ballista sought out the new capital to fund the expansion of its Ballista Alternative Trading System, a platform for block trading of options, delta-neutral strategies and other transactions. Ballista is looking to build out its technology infrastructure and expand its staff of 27 by 25% over the next few quarters, according to Chief Executive Robert Newhouse.

June 10, 2009
Securities Industry News
By Alexa Jaworski

Ballista Holdings, owner of Ballista Securities LLC, received a $15 million minority investment from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Knight Capital Group, Morgan Stanley, Susquehanna Growth Equity, and existing investors, including Metropolitan Equity Partners. The investment will be used to support continued technology innovation, enhanced client service and a more aggressive sales and marketing effort to further develop its liquidity pool, the company said.
Full Article

June 09, 2009
The Wall Street Journal
By Randy Smith

NEW YORK -- The parent of a new institutional options-trading system has won backing from four Wall Street trading firms, including Morgan Stanley and Knight Capital Group Inc. The planned minority investment in Ballista Holdings, operator of the Ballista Alternative Trading System, is the latest instance of the proliferation of such trading systems from the stock world to the options world. Announcement of the new stakes, which are valued at a combined $15 million, is expected Tuesday. The new investors also include International Securities Exchange Holdings Inc., a big options-exchange operator, and Susquehanna Growth Equity LLP, a private-equity firm. Ballista's trading system specializes in large or complex options strategies and employs a two-step execution that allows institutions to register interest anonymously before agreeing to a trade.
Full Article

June 09, 2009
Reuters
By Doris Frankel

CHICAGO, June 9 (Reuters) - Privately held venture Ballista Holdings said on Tuesday that it received funding from a group of investors to expand its electronic platform for block options and complex options strategies...The funding comes at a time when institutions are increasingly using listed options in their trading strategies, but they are also demanding efficient and fast ways to execute their large option orders.
Full Article

June 09, 2009
Wall Street Letter
By Stefanie Gordon

Ballista is expanding on the heels of receiving a $15 million minority investment from the International Securities Exchange, Knight Capital Group, Morgan Stanley, Susquehanna Growth Equity and the firmÕs existing investors, including Metropolitan Equity Partners. The added capital will enable the firm to expand its sales and technology teams by approximately 25%.
Full Article

June 09, 2009
Markets Media Online
By Natasha Gural, Editor-in-Chief

Securities industry heavyweights International Securities Exchange, Knight Capital Group, Morgan Stanley and Susquehanna Growth Equity, have made a minority investment in Ballista Holdings, a positive sign that the options industry will continue to flourish, Keith Landsberg, Ballista executive vice president, told Markets Media Tuesday.

"The investment from such a distinguished and diverse group of industry leaders will provide Ballista a strong base of strategic resources in the quest to become the premier destination for institutional block trading of equity options and volatility," said Robert Newhouse, founder and chief executive officer of Ballista Securities. ÒAs part of the investment, one representative from each of the four new investors will join the company's board.Ó
Full Article

June 09, 2009
Advanced Trading
By Cristina McEachern

Ballista Holdings announced it has received a minority investment from securities firms including International Securities Exchange (ISE), Knight Capital Group, Morgan Stanley, Susquehanna Growth Equity and existing investors. Ballista Holdings owns Ballista Securities, which operates the Ballista Alternative Trading System (ATS) for block trading in options, delta-neutral strategies and other complex options transactions. The investment will help with continuing technology innovation and enhancing client service, as well as more aggressive sales and marketing to further develop its liquidity pool.
Full Article

June 05, 2009
The Options Insider
By Mark Longo

In this episode, Mark is joined by Robert Newhouse, CEO, Ballista Securities and Keith Landsberg, EVP, Business Development, Ballista Securities. Mark, Robert and Keith discuss the rise of third-party facilitation networks, aka dark pools, in the options market. They also discuss the impact of the financial meltdown, regulatory reform and penny pricing on Ballista's business.
Full Article

May 01, 2009
Wall Street Letter
Options Exchanges Ready Linkage
By Jeanene Timberlake

New trading systems that have pounced on double-digit options volume increases of the last few years are hoping that with the advent of Reg NMS in options, they can attract more equities traders to try out the market. "When approved, it will create a more homogeneous rule set with the equity markets, which the industry is already used to," said Keith Landsberg, executive v.p.of business development for Ballista Securities.
Full Article

May 01, 2009
Markets Media Online
Evolution, Not Revolution
By Natasha Gural, Editor-in-Chief

(The Ballista ATS is designed for) liquidity seekers in the options universe, especially complex institutional trades of 500 or more contracts. "In the past, there was only one sourceto seek that liquidity: through the inter-dealer broker," said Landsberg. "We decided to give liquidity seekers a way to source the liquidity themselves." ... Ballista is an "evolutionary, not revolutionary product," which provides "a rule-based alternative to the inter-dealer broker market," Landsberg said. "We think that is a very fair, philosophical way to compete for liquidity," he said.
Full Article

April 17, 2009
Markets Media Online
Risk Volatility for Liquidity?
By Karla L. Yeh, Chicago Correspondent

"Traders have adjusted risk to the volatile markets, but the markets are stabilizing," said Keith Landsberg, executive vice president of business development at Ballista. Landsberg said traders will take on more risk now as intraday volatility continues to diminish. Landsberg said in addition to adjusting strategies, traders will seek alternative sources of liquidity, including dark pool connections.
Full Article

April 8, 2009
FIVE MINUTES with Robert Newhouse
MarketsWIKI

Q: You've been chief technology officer at several financial firms - TORC Financial and Orbit II Partners. You also worked on Island ECN, how did that experience help in building Ballista?

A: I've been able to leverage my experience, of course. Both my experiences at Island and TORC were with really small companies. The management team at Island with Josh Levine, Matt Andresen and Will Sterling are still heroes and mentors of mine to this day. They really gave me the general tenants of speed, the culture of innovation and the philosophy of remaining philosophically pure. That means providing a value proposition for a specific reason to people, sticking by that philosophy and never wavering from that philosophy.
Full Article

March 18, 2009
Futures and Options Intelligence
Bloomberg offers new system for options block trades

Robert Newhouse, CEO of Ballista Securities, which launched a block trading platform last October, said he welcomed the competition from Bloomberg because such a large player in the financial markets would help push more of the business on to electronic platforms. "One thing we're adamant about is increasing the level of automation within the listed options area," Newhouse said. "So ventures like Bloomberg are really accretive to that purpose of increasing the overall efficiency of institutional options trading."
Full Article

March 11, 2009
Wall Street & Technology
THE STRIKING PLACE
Wall Street Accelerates Options Analysis With GPU Technology
By Ivy Schmerken

Amid all the doom and gloom dragging down the financial markets, equity options trading has emerged as one of the fastest-growing sectors. But the latency-sensitive world of options trading and derivatives pricing requires massive computational power. For example, there are more than 100 exchange-traded options linked to Microsoft's stock; each time the stock is traded, those values need to be recalculated. "That is a hugely intensive computation," relates Daniel Marques, CTO at New York-based Ballista Securities, which launched Ballista ATS, an alternative trading system for block options trades, in October. Marques explains that each option is tied to a complex formula that measures the option's sensitivity to change in the underlying stock. These options analytics, often referred to as Greeks, are critical in calculating options values.
Full Article

February 10, 2009
The Hedgefund Journal
Ballista Uses ACTIV Financial

"To aggregate orders and speed block trading, Ballista leverages ACTIV's data for all North American equity and options listings, including International Stock Exchange (ISE) and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), providing the company a holistic view of the market landscape to enable clients to best capitalize on trading options blocks."
Full Article

December 15, 2008
Dealing With Technology
Exchanges Betting On New Business Models

"They have effectively put two models under one umbrella so they don't have to make the bet and let the market decide instead," says Robert Newhouse, CEO of Ballista Securities. He says he doesn't see that smaller exchanges and trading venues have similar options. "It costs an immense amount of capital to run two exchanges and self-regulatory organizations (SROs) under the same umbrella-smaller and more nimble players will need to focus on one specific pricing model," he adds.

Institutional traders who are (or were) driving volume growth in options often complain of difficulties executing big orders at exchanges. Ballista solves that by matching orders on a trading network, whose members include hedge funds and major trading firms.
Full Article

November 13, 2008
WALL STREET LETTER
Ballista Sees Silver Lining In Volatility
By Stefanie Gordon

“Trading volatility is at an all-time high and gives an incentive for people to trade. Whenever you see a decrease in retail volume like we’re seeing now, there is a small uptake in institutional volume,” said Robert Newhouse, CEO. With a minimum order size of 500 contracts, the Ballista ATS system is intended for an institutional client base.
Full Article

November 11, 2008
THE TRADE NEWS
Ballista ATS begins live trading

“We have been pleased by the reactions of the options exchanges, especially the ISE and the CBOE, each of whom has been very receptive to our needs and those of our customers,” added Keith Landsberg, executive vice president, business development, Ballista. “We are pleased to see them offer the electronic crossing mechanisms that make us a powerful ally in the fight to bring more listed options volume back to the exchanges.”
Full Article

November 10, 2008
ADVANCED TRADING
Ballista Begins Live Trading as an Alternative Trading System
By Leslie Kramer

Ballista offers anonymous, electronic access to qualified buy-side initiators and sell-side liquidity providers that trade in large block sizes. As an ATS, Ballista seeks to provide an alternative to the traditional inefficient, manual liquidity sourcing methods of phone calls, emails and instant messages.
Full Article

November 10, 2008
Bloomberg.com
Ballista Launches Electronic Market
By Edgar Ortega

Ballista Securities LLC is an alternative trading system, a designation that allows the option brokerage to operate like an electronic market that handles trades anonymously. Ballista is the first ATS... that focuses on complex trades that involve buying and selling multiple contracts at the same time.

November 10, 2008
Securities Industry News
Ballista Options ATS Goes Live
By Alexa Jaworski

The alternative trading system (ATS) launched Oct. 27, according to Ballista, with a client base of hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, market makers and other liquidity providers seeking to move large orders. The privately held platform operator, which was founded in early 2007... expects to expand rapidly, adding customers and liquidity.
Full Article

September 17, 2008
REUTERS
Exchanges eye "gray pools" on options horizon
By Jonathan Spicer and Doris Frankel

The options exchanges are anxious to attract the growing ranks of professional players and hope the upstart networks will drive "dark" trading volume their way.

The gray pools, meanwhile ... are confident they have found a delicate and lucrative balance between light and dark.

"We are not competitive to the exchanges, we are accretive to them," Robert Newhouse, chief executive of Ballista, said in an interview. "And we are bringing back some of the OTC volume that has left the exchanges.

"There's really no true way to quantify how big this can be."

September 15, 2008
PENSIONS & INVESTMENTS MAGAZINE
Crossing networks take on options
Firms hoping to bring trading efficiency and lower costs to fragmented market
By Isabelle Clary

Crossing networks are moving into options, hoping to extend to money managers the same benefits they have achieved in the equity markets — matching large orders at the best possible price. “We at Ballista are providing a new method of sourcing liquidity from the buy side to the sell side,” said Robert Newhouse, Ballista chief executive officer.

August 21, 2008
THE OPTIONS INSIDER RADIO
Episode 24: Ballista and Options Dark Pools
Radio Interview by Mark S. Longo, Founder

In this episode, Mark is joined by Robert Newhouse, CEO of Ballista. Mark and Robert discuss the growing controversy over dark pools in the options market.
Listen to Episode

August 18, 2008
ADVANCED TRADING
Ballista Securities Achieves FINRA Membership as Broker-Dealer
Electronic Liquidity Pool for Block Options and Complex Strategies to Go Live Next Month
By Ivy Schmerken

Ballista Securities expects to launch the industry's first electronic liquidity pool for block options and delta neutral trading in September. Ballista announced the live date after receiving... membership as a broker-dealer in FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority).

With this designation, Ballista is able to allow full trading operations to begin next month. The new platform is aggregating fragmented options liquidity for the improved execution of large trades and complex strategies.
Full Article

August 18, 2008
MARKETSMEDIA ONLINE
Ballista to Launch Pool for Block Options
By Natasha Gural, Editor

"... Ballista Securities will offer traders the ability to quickly and easily tap into multiple sources of liquidity through our platform, vastly improving the execution of delta-neutral strategies and block trades."
Full Article

August 18, 2008
WALL STREET LETTER
Ballista Launches Sales Campaign
By Veronica Belitski

The company already has verbal agreements with liquidity providers and is planning to sign contracts in preparation for launch next month. "We've already exposed what the network is all about, but now we hope to gain everyone's interest in the next few months as they get to experience the platform on a higher level," said Robert Newhouse, CEO.
Full Article

August 18, 2008
REUTERS
Options block trading firm gets broker-dealer status
By Doris Frankel

The company already has verbal agreements with liquidity providers and is planning to sign contracts in preparation for launch next month. "We've already exposed what the network is all about, but now we hope to gain everyone's interest in the next few months as they get to experience the platform on a higher level," said Robert Newhouse, CEO.

August 15, 2008, 7:27am EDT
TheStreet.com
Shedding Some Light on "Dark Pools"
By Steven Smith, Director and Chief Strategist, Options Alerts

The basic business model is geared toward a big player looking to trade more than 500 option contracts. Ballista says it offers a much better alternative to sending orders out into the open market.
Full Article

August, 2008
TRADERS MAGAZINE
Options Pools Eye OTC Flow
By Nina Mehta

Robert Newhouse, CEO of Ballista, said he founded his firm last year "because of changes we saw happening in the options landscape" that made it easier for electronic crosses to transact on exchanges. "The equities markets were revolutionized in 1996-1997," he added. "Options are ready to receive some of those automated technologies."
Full Article

July 17, 2008
WALL STREET LETTER
PHLX Sets Uniform Crossing Threshold
By Veronica Belitski

Traders have been trying to take full advantage of crossing rules since the advent of the penny pilot, which made it harder for large orders to get filled. The emergence of crossing networks, such as ... Ballista has revived crossing by promising to match large buyers and sellers and then executing orders on the exchanges.
Full Article

July 11, 2008
TRADERS MAGAZINE
New Options Pool Set to Launch
By Nina Mehta

... and Ballista are "basically liquidity-seeking mechanisms," noted Ed Provost, executive vice president for business development at the CBOE. "They serve the marketplace by helping facilitate institutional-size orders, which can be price-improved by exchanges. Displayed liquidity has been wanting in our business since pennies."
Full Article

June 16, 2008
FINANCIAL NEWS ONLINE
Options traders take the plunge into dark pools
By Melanie Wold

Robert Newhouse, chief executive of Ballista, said the decision to develop the system was customer-led.

Newhouse said: "In January 2007, I was approached by hedge funds and buyside institutions complaining about the inefficiency of the mechanisms to trade volatility. It took too long, was too expensive and led to information leakage - areas we were sure we could improve."

He said he was chosen based on his experience in electronic trading at Island Electronic Crossing Network and with options on the American Stock Exchange floor: "We came up with something similar to the other electronic liquidity pool models, but with features relevant to this asset class."
Full Article

June 2, 2008
IDDmagazine.com
Decoding Algos
By John Hintze

Ballista... is aiming at a different market segment--typically hedge funds and also brokers and banks--by requiring a 500-lot minimum. Members enter an order without revealing its size, price or whether the intent is to buy or sell-one factor mitigating parties front-running the trade. A second factor requires counterparties choosing to view that liquidity in more detail to enter their own orders simultaneously, creating an exposure that the initiating party can execute against and keeping counterparties above board.
Full Article

May 22, 2008
WALL STREET LETTER
Ballista Expands Sales On Launch Eve
By Veronica Belitski

Ballista first unveiled the system to the public at the Options Industry Conference in Las Vegas at the beginning of the month and response had been overwhelming, he said. In addition to lining up liquidity providers, Wilkins is responsible for developing relationships with exchanges where the crossed orders would execute. “We are speaking to all seven actors. Technology and speed are the advantages we are looking for,” he said. Down the line, Ballista is also exploring partnerships with execution management systems and order management systems to improve distribution.
Full Article

May 15, 2008
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Traders Continue To Drive OTC Option Volume Despite Risks
By Tennille Tracy

Although OTC trades have always posed such problems - known as counterparty risk - they have become considerably more pronounced in the weeks since the near collapse of Bear Stearns Cos. (BSC) reminded traders that even top financial firms can be surprisingly fragile.

And those risks are greater for traders of options. The securities, which convey the right to buy or sell stock at fixed prices by a future date, tie counterparties up in relationships that can last for weeks or sometimes months.
Full Article

May 12, 2008
PENSIONS & INVESTMENTS
Growth in options fuels new models
Firms modifying equity trading technology to meet demands of institutional traders
By Isabelle Clary

Yet, this does not discourage innovators, such as Ballista, New York, which unveiled at the conference its platform for block trades and delta-neutral options transactions — those involving offsetting positions — and complex orders.

Ballista... seeks to aggregate orders — found on the exchanges and OTC and upstairs markets, all with full anonymity of the participants.
Full Article

May 9, 2008
ELECTRONIC TRADING
Ballista Plans Platform For Block Equity Options and Complex Trades
By Roger Aitken

Newhouse says that while the platform supports block options, the core value of the Ballista platform is to support delta-neutral transactions - complex trades. The intended market for the platform is large hedge funds, major liquidity providers and banks looking to source liquidity for volatility transactions and block options. Initiators, Newhouse says, are mostly found among the large hedge funds, banks and broker-dealers, while those providing liquidity - the contras - are often similar entities as well as larger market-making firms.
Full Article

May 9, 2008
TheStreet.com
OPTIONS
Ballista's Options Platform Could Change the Game
By Steven Smith, Director and Chief Strategist, Options Alerts

Start-up Ballista has created a unique electronic platform targeting institutions and other professional traders that trade large blocks and employ delta-neutral or other hedges with multiple-strike strategies or combinations of stock and options.
Full Article

May 9, 2008
FUTURES & OPTIONS WEEK
Pennies driving OTC options
By Jim Kharouf

Phase three is to build technology, for instance new block trading facilities and other functionalities that make trading more efficient. The options industry already is starting to see block trading systems from firms like ... Ballista, which offers block trading and complex order functionality.
Full Article

May 5, 2008
Dealing With Technology Vol. 4 No. 49
HOT ISSUES
Options Trading Goes Ballistic
By Rob Daly

DWT: Ballista has deployed a lot of open-source technology. Was it the firm's intention to adopt open source whenever possible?

Newhouse: Not at all. It's quite the opposite, which is very interesting to us. Everything we've been doing we've looked at open- and closed-source platforms and went with the strongest candidate....For example, we've standardized on Microsoft SQL Server. That's the only Windows-based system we have because SQL needs Windows support. We felt that with the performance we were getting out of open-source databases, such as MySQL, it made sense to pay for the value. Spread is the best of breed for messaging and Linux is the best of breed as an operating system for running JVMs. We've looked at the full spectrum of products and the messaging piece and programming language happen to be open source.
Full Article

May 5, 2008
SECURITIES INDUSTRY NEWS
Ballista Prepares to Launch Options Liquidity Pool
By Alexa Jaworski

CEO Robert Newhouse explained that Ballista was built to "de-fragment the options market by offering access to multiple execution venues, and at the same time, aggregate passive liquidity by bringing market participants into our system so they can actually have a formal place to post their interest to trade."

Newhouse, who was previously CTO of New York-based Torc Financial, developer of the TradeSpeed system, said he believes "Ballista's ability to aggregate public and non-public liquidity via a single electronic platform ... will significantly enhance liquidity-sourcing efforts throughout the options community." The platform is slated to enter beta-testing shortly and a few customers will be on the system prior to the official rollout, said Newhouse.
Full Article

May 5, 2008
WALL STREET LETTER
Firms to Exchanges: Cross Blocks Better
By Veronica Belitski
Go To Article

April 28, 2008
INSIDE MARKET DATA
Options Data's Growing Pains: Industry Roundtable
By Max Bowie

IMD: What will be the biggest change to hit the options data industry in the coming year?

Ballista CEO Newhouse: Introduction of electronic systems such as Ballista will serve to augment current exchange functionality. As these platforms are launched, the regulatory landscape may also change to more closely mimic the equity markets in terms of ability to present a matched trade to an exchange facility.
Full Article

April 28, 2008
BARRON’S ONLINE
THE STRIKING PLACE
New Rivals to Options Marts
By Steven M. Sears

Ballista Securities said last week that it expects to launch one of these rival systems in May. It's likely to be well received. Ballista will let institutional investors, now driving trading volume, aggregate exchange and off-exchange trading interests that are now hidden from view.
Full Article

April 21, 2008
ADVANCED TRADING
Ballista Unveils Electronic Platform to Aggregate Options Liquidity In Fragmented Market
By Ivy Schmerken

In a move to aggregate liquidity in the fragmented options market, Ballista, a start-up broker-dealer, is announcing today the first equity options liquidity pool that will provide electronic access to public and non-public liquidity from banks, hedge funds and market makers.
Full Article

April 21, 2008
REUTERS
Firm plans options platform with liquidity pool
By Doris Frankel

The Ballista platform will offer traders searching for liquidity a way to communicate directly with counter parties, allowing for direct and instantaneous access to one another.

Its strength rests in its ability to aggregate both displayed liquidity found on exchanges and the non-displayed liquidity, the passive liquidity offered by market-makers, banks and hedge funds, Ballista said.

... Another feature Ballista offers is direct electronic communication between the trader initiating an order and the counter party closest to the desired price and size of the initial order.
http://www.reuters.com

April 18, 2008
WALL STREET LETTER
Island Vet Plans Options Crossing Network
By Veronica Belitski

Former Island ECN veteran Robert Newhouse is launching a new options crossing network called Ballista next month... Unlike 3D Markets' Archangel, which is expected to go live by June, the network allows traders to cross complex equity-and-option orders and to negotiate the price.
Full Article

April 7, 2008
BARRON’S ONLINE
THE STRIKING PLACE
A Bull Market in Exchanges
By Steven M. Sears

The options market is a curious place. As other market exchanges rush to consolidate worldwide, the number of options exchanges keeps increasing. Last week, a seventh exchange opened and more probably will follow.
Full Article