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Operator
System Voice
Hello, and welcome to the SIBO Global Markets third quarter 2021 financial results. All participants will be in the Sonali mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To answer your question, please press star, then two. Please note, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host today, Ken Hill. Mr. Hill, please go ahead.
Ken Hill
Host
Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter earnings conference call. On the call today, Ed Tilley, our chairman, president, and CEO, will discuss our performance for the quarter and provide an update on our strategic initiatives. Then, Brian Scheller, executive vice president, CFO, and treasurer, will provide an overview of the financial results for the quarter as well as an update on our 2021 financial outlook. Following their comments, we'll open the call to Q&A. Also joining us for Q&A will be Chris Isaacson, our Chief Operating Officer, and John Dieters, our Chief Strategy Officer. I would like to point out that this presentation will include the use of slides. We will be showing the slides and providing commentary on each. A downloadable copy of each slide is available on our investor relations portion of our website. During our remarks, we'll make some forward-looking statements which represent our current judgment 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 by-links with the SEC for 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 call this morning, we'll be referring to non-GAAP measures as defined and reconciled in our earnings materials. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Ed.
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
Thank you, Ken. We're happy to have you on board as Debbie Koopman prepares for retirement next month. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. As we head into year end, I hope that you're doing well and remaining safe and healthy. I'm pleased to report on solid financial results for the third quarter of 2021 at SIBO Global Market. In our proprietary products, ADV increased 29% in VIX futures, 32% in VIX options, and 39% in SVX options. We also continue to see strong growth in multi-listed options trading, with ADV up 20% year-over-year in the third quarter. During the quarter, we also delivered on several strategic milestones to expand our global network, including the successful launch of our European-derived I'll touch on both in a moment, but first I want to discuss our plans to enter the digital asset market through the planned acquisition of ARIS X, which we announced last week. ARIS X will provide SIBO with spot trading, data, derivatives, and clearing capabilities for digital assets through its regulated futures exchange and clearinghouse. The past two weeks have been a in the U.S. equities market. As the appetite for ownership in digital assets continues to grow, we believe SIBO can play a guiding role in shaping the trajectory of this revolutionary market. Today, we are at a critical inflection point. We're seeing strong retail demand, institutional interest, market growth, and streaming of digital assets, even with traditional financial terms. As a leading provider of global market infrastructure, and we want to maintain that innovative spirit while providing the regulatory framework and structure that many market participants desire. We have secured support from a tremendous group of industry leaders who are aligned with our vision and want to shape and define this asset class now and for the future. These industry leaders bring different perspectives and expertise from retail brokers, crypto-leading firms, global liquidity providers, and sell-side banks. They are expected to These industry leaders include DRW, Fidelity Digital Assets, phase of growth. I'm extremely pleased with the progress we made during the third quarter, executing on the four key incremental growth drivers I outlined at the beginning of this year. The opportunity to grow recurring non-transaction revenue, the launch of SIBO Europe derivatives, our expansion plans for bids to continue to optimize the efficiency and delivery of our data and access solutions to market participants and are excited to launch SIBO Global Cloud, a new real-time cloud-based market data streaming service in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, November 1st. SIBO Global Cloud is expected to help further extend SIBO's data to new users and geographies, an important step towards broadening investor access to our proprietary content and market data globally. Bringing the first truly pan-European, transparent, and lit derivatives market to Europe is a remarkable achievement, and we are enthusiastic about the opportunities ahead. Additionally, our European equities business delivered strong results in the third quarter, with average daily notional value traded up 29%. SIBO LIS, powered by BID. Turning to East Pacific, we made good progress integrating the Chiax team since we closed the acquisition at the beginning of July. We plan to migrate Chiax to SIBO technology and are busy working through the integration plan and timeline. With our expanded footprint in the Asia-Pacific region, we see significant opportunity to further develop our ecosystem of market infrastructure and tradable products into one of the world's largest derivatives and securities networks. Beginning November 21st, on their platform this month. We've continued to see strong demand for SPX options from both institutional and retail broker platforms, and are eager to expand access to this product suite. Similar to last quarter, we saw solid growth in SPX options trading on retail broker platforms, with ADV on those platforms up 24% from the second quarter, hitting a new all-time high. KeyTor global network expansion, thrilled to expand our relationship with MSCI and extend the licensing agreement that allows SIBO to offer options trading on MSCI global indices through 2031. We have valued our strong relationship with MSCI for many years and look forward to further collaboration in the years ahead, particularly in the important area of ESG investing. As the retail market continues that end, earlier this week, we announced plans to launch Nanos, a first-of-its-kind options contract designed to make trading more accessible for the retail trader. Increased retail participation has fueled record trading across the industry. Between the top four retail broker platforms, there are now more than 150 million retail brokerage accounts, and many of these accounts are too small to take advantage of the potential benefits certain options contracts can offer. We plan to launch our first Nanos product on the S&P 500 index first quarter 2022. At a fraction of the size of a standard options contract, the one multiplier cash-settled Nano S&P 500 answers the growing demand for a simpler, more cost-effective way to gain broad exposure to the U.S. equity market. The S&P 500 option market is one of the most highly traded and liquid option markets across the globe. tailored to retail traders. Through our long-standing commitment to education, we are continuously evolving our programs to offer more retail-centric content through the Options Institute, and we look forward to welcoming a new generation of traders to options trading with the launch of Nanos. As we broaden our global footprint by entering new markets and launching new products and services, we further our goal of expanding access our businesses. We head into the final months of the year on a stronger footing than ever, and we look forward to continuing to execute on our growth opportunities ahead. With that, I'll turn it over to Brian.
Brian Scheller
Executive Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone. Let me remind everyone that unless specifically noticed, my comments relate to 3Q21 as compared to 3Q20 and are based on our non-GAAP adjusted results. As Ed just indicated, The third quarter was incredibly strong for SIBO, with robust results from both a transaction and non-transaction basis. Overall adjusted earnings increased 31% versus the third quarter of 2020 and improved off solid second quarter 2021 metrics. As we move forward, we look for the cash, derivatives, and data portions of our business to work in unison to enhance revenue opportunities and shareholder value. Now a quick look at the third quarter. Our net revenue increased 27%, setting a new quarterly record. Net transaction fees were up 39% and recurring non-transaction revenue was up 21%. Adjusted operating expenses increased 29%. Adjusted EBITDA of $240 million was up 25%. And finally, our adjusted compared to last year's quarterly results. Turning to the key drivers by segment, our press release and the appendix of our slide deck includes information detailing the key metrics for each of our business segments, so I'll just provide summary thoughts. While we saw year-over-year growth in all of our segments, our options segment produced above-average growth for the quarter of 30%, driven by higher trading volumes and revenue per contract in both our proprietary and multi-listed options. Total options ADV was up 23% as we saw double-digit increases in both index and multi-listed options. Revenue per contract also moved higher by 16%, giving positive makeshift to index products and a strong increase in our multi-listed options RPC, up 23%. And we continue to benefit from double-digit growth in recurring non-transaction revenue, particularly access and capacity fees. North American equities revenue increased 13% year-over-year as acquisition-related net transaction and clearing fees were further helped by strong proprietary market data fees and access to capacity fees. This was offset somewhat by a 1% year-over-year decline in U.S. equity ADV and a 1% year-over-year decline in market share for the quarter. While market share trends have We remain focused on optimizing long-term profit in the business through the many initiatives we have introduced or plan to introduce to the market. For the quarter, match now and bids contributed $8.5 million in net revenue. Lastly, recurring non-transaction revenue increased by more than $5 million, or 17%, with organic growth of 14%. Third quarter revenue increased in futures by 24%, Looking forward, we were pleased to see the SEC recently approved filings to list and trade shares of two new volatility shares products, an inverse and long VIX futures ETF. These new listings are likely to increase the VIX trading ecosystem as the AUM builds on those products. The revenue increase in Europe and APAC primarily reflects the addition of China's Asia Pacific in July 2021, an $8.2 million contribution. as well as growth in European equities and clearing. Underlying trends remain strong in the third quarter, as industry average daily notional value traded, market share on SIBO European equities, and net capture all moved higher on a year-over-year basis. And finally, revenues in the FX segment increased 8% as compared to the third quarter of 2020, as trading volumes and net capture moved higher. During the quarter, global FX market share had a all-time high of 17%. SIBO's recurring non-transaction revenue growth remained elevated in the third quarter, with year-over-year organic growth reaching 14%. Again, this strong growth was largely a product of additional subscriptions and units, as opposed to price increases. More specifically, we saw both physical and logical port usage remain robust in our equities and options businesses, driven by increased demand for trading capacity, and on the market data side, the equities top of book and depth of book products continue to perform well. We're increasing our organic outlook by one to two percentage points to approximately 14%. Our total recurring non-transaction revenue growth is now expected to reach approximately 18% for 2021, up two to three percentage points versus our prior expectation. Overall, we are very pleased with the continued traction in this business as an important element of CBOE's ecosystem of products and services. Turning to expenses, total adjusted operating expenses were approximately $140 million for the quarter, up 29% compared to last year. Excluding the impact of acquisitions owned less than a year, adjusted operating expenses were up 17% or $19 million for the quarter. Most of the expense variance related to the acquisitions was compensation and benefits. Blue chart expense guidance. We are tightening and raising our expense guidance range for the full year to $536 to $141 million from $531 to $539 million. The $4 million increase in the midpoint reflects higher incentive compensation costs, reflecting the strong year-to-date operating results we have posted, as well as our plans for increased hiring during the fourth quarter and a slight uptick in our depreciation amortization forecasts. As a firm, we believe in a pay-for-performance culture, and not only has our year-to-date financial performance been strong, we have made significant progress against our longer-term growth priorities, especially towards increasing access to SIBO products and services, as Ed noted previously. As you recall from our February earnings meeting, we laid out a path for revenue growth that would be preceded by higher-than-normal expense growth that would slightly compress margins, in the short term to enable longer-term growth. We remain focused on investing in key initiatives with attractive returns, and we look forward to meeting the current and future market demand by prudently investing organically and inorganically to meet those needs, even if it requires upfront spend. Now, turning to a summary of full-year guidance on the next slide, we are raising our guidance for depreciation and amortization to $38 to $42 million, from $34 to $38 million, due to the earlier timing of various products. Our CapEx guidance range moves $8 million lower to $47 to $52 million, and we are reaffirming the higher end of our guided tax range of 27.5% to 29.5% for the full year under the current tax laws. million range. In addition to the investment priorities we outlined earlier in the call, we remain committed to returning excess cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. From a capital return perspective, our strong cash flow generation enabled us to raise our quarterly dividend for the 11th straight year, growing 14% on a year-over-year basis. In total, we returned $52 million of shareholders through dividends in the third quarter. Our leverage ratio at sequential basis. Overall, our balance sheet remains unencumbered as we look to put incremental capital to use in value-enhancing ways for shareholders. Our adjusted cash and financial investments balance is elevated reflecting the planned use of cash to fund a portion of the planned transactions we recently announced, as well as a slightly higher requirement for regulatory capital purposes. In summary, CBOE delivered a solutions that extend access to global markets for our customers, grow our geographic footprint and breadth of asset classes, and diversify our revenue base. We look for these planned additions to fuel continued growth across the SIBO ecosystem. Thanks, Brian.
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
Before we move to Q&A, I want to provide a further update on our ESG initiatives during the quarter. Earlier this month, CEBA was proud to be named a founding member of the Derivatives Partner Exchanges Network of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative. We look forward to sharing ideas and engaging this network on important dialogue on how derivative exchanges can support greater sustainability in addition to advancing partnerships important space. As you can see, we have been extremely busy, and I thank the entire CBO team for their hard work delivering outstanding results. We look forward to hosting our Investor Day on November 16th, where we will dive further into our business, providing more color on these initiatives and how they are helping drive our strategy. We hope you can join us. Details for accessing the event are on our IR website. Finally, I'd once again like to thank Debbie She'll be with us through Ambassador Day, so it's not quite farewell yet, but this is her finale for quarterly earnings. She will be dearly missed by me and the entire CBO team. And I'll pass it back to Ken for instructions on the Q&A portion of the call.
Ken Hill
Host
Thanks, Ed. At this point, we would be happy to take questions. We ask that you limit yourself to one question per person to allow time to get to everyone. Feel free to get back in the queue, and if time permits, we'll take a second question.
Operator
System Voice
Yes. Yes, thank you. We'll be getting questions in the next session. And just press star then one if you would like to ask a question. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To try your question, please press star then two. At this time, we're going to pause momentarily to assemble the roster. And this morning's first question comes from Rich Rapetto with Piper Sandler.
Rich Rapetto
Analyst at Piper Sandler
Good morning, Ed. Good morning, Brian and team. I guess, Ed, you know, we take your acquisition very seriously now. So the ERISECs, you know, positions, and you talked about it in the prepared remarks. But I guess I wanted to get, you know, what does ERIS, you know, what are they trading right now? I know they trade some over-the-counter products. And when do you actually expect them to trade any digital assets? And do you need regulatory sort of clarity to do that? And did it prevent you from buying back shares in the quarter?
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
So let's take the first
Brian Scheller
Executive Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
we were being more conservative than not as we looked at kind of overall leverage, deployment of cash. So it was, you know, like I said, it's always a balanced quarter over quarter of, you know, do you sit on a little bit more cash in anticipation of a transaction, you know, closing in the pipeline. So that was more of a reflection of that than anything else. Thanks, Brett.
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
All right, so let me, Rich, let me take a half a step back on Arasex because I think it's important to recognize that we didn't just wake up a couple months ago and think, gosh, crypto, look what's happening, it might be neat to get into this space. We launched, if you recall, the first futures contract in 2017. And even before that, we had applications to the SEC for ETMs and ETPs. So it's a space we've had our eye on. We thought the ecosystem in this space would have evolved a bit quicker. So we've always had an eye on getting back into the space. The last couple of calls, I've been mentioning that. Importantly, also, we were early investors in Arasax in 2018 when Don Wilson and Tom Chippas saw the opportunity to build out a regulated fair market in spot, derivatives, clearing, and margining. So, long answer to your question, framed that way, we've constantly, and since the launch of those futures contracts, been looking for an opportunity that gets us back into the market. But John, I think importantly, the rollout, what ARISX is trading today, and what we have in front of us between now and close. Yeah, thanks, Dave. Good morning, Rich.
John Dieters
Chief Strategy Officer
This is John. So the mention that you just gave of OTC products, Rich, I think that relates to a separate business. It's a little confusing. It's also called ARIS, but that business offers swap futures. They're traded on a competing exchange. We're talking about here ARISX, which is purely a crypto platform. The businesses are completely separate. And what ARISX offers, as Ed mentioned, is really a start to finish integrated platform for crypto trading, spot clearing, and derivatives. And the platform is live today. So there are significant users on the platform, depending on the day. Some days it can be really one of the top three, four in the market. The partners that we're bringing to the table here, and you see us mention in the press release these partners as forming our digital advisory committee, many of those partners are live today on the platform. So we believe as we kind of look at the evolution of the space, the partners we're bringing to the table and the readiness of the platform that are timing really is pretty much spot on here because the technology platform is built, the regulatory approvals are in place, One thing that we're really looking forward to as we move towards close and towards evolving the business is the expansion of the derivatives franchise. So, again, the regulatory approvals for that platform are all in place. The technology is in place. But what we intend to do is work with the CFTC in gaining approval for margin futures. And then other derivatives products, which we think can be game-changing for the industry. There really is nothing like it. Settling into the physical coin in an integrated spot clearing and futures and derivatives platform. So we look forward to that build, but really that's the only piece that is yet to come. The rest is live and poised for growth today.
Rich Rapetto
Analyst at Piper Sandler
Got it. Very, very helpful. And we'll see you at the end. Let's stay, Deb.
Operator
System Voice
Thank you. And the next question comes from Dan Fannin with Jefferies.
Dan Fannin
Analyst at Jefferies
Thanks. Good morning. I wanted to ask about the European derivative opportunity. You talked about some of the product launches and more in the pipeline. Are you incenting, you know, volume with pricing or what is the pricing strategy? And how should we think about kind of growth or some of the milestones for success in the kind of coming months and quarters for that business?
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
Before I turn over to Brian for the incentive program, I think very, very important, the way we look at success starts with operations. And Chris, your observations in the days, and since September 6th actually, we could not be happier with not only the execution on our platform, but clearing. So EuroCCP keeping up with the demands to offer clearing, and that flowing seamlessly through. A couple words there, Chris, and then Brian on incentives and the stipends for market makers.
Chris Isaacson
Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. Good morning. Thanks, Dan, for the question. So we're very pleased with, you know, launching this on time on September 6th on the leadership of Dave Housen and Addy and Cecile in Europe. Our exchange worked just as designed, so did the clearing system. You know, we bought EuroCCP about a year ago, and they've added clearing to their portfolio recently. as we built the derivatives exchange. So operationally, things are going just as we planned. We've communicated that we had modest expectations this year as we build the base. And Brian can talk about incentives we have in place for market making and liquidity.
Brian Scheller
Executive Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Yeah, thanks, Chris. I think to frame that is you have to look at the entire ecosystem of who is involved and what makes a product successful relative to the clearing members structure itself called the exchange and clearing, which was mentioned. But if you think about the clearing members, the market makers, the customers that are going to be trading and putting the right incentives in place. So what we've done is we've obviously tried to remove those frictional elements to facilitate liquidity and facilitate volume. So there are stipends in place. There is tiering in place with respect to those elements. So again, to incent those participants. And we'll see that continue to build as we add more and more clearing members, as we add more market makers to both the futures and the options side. So stay tuned for that progress. We'll put out some targets at our investor day as far as where we think this business can go. Call it in more of a three to five year time frame. But I would say right now, as the team has already mentioned, The key success here was the operational element of getting people on the platform, getting it traded. Products are successful from that standpoint. We're achieving the on-screen transparency and liquidity of what we set out to do, and then with the expectation of growing that over time.
Dan Fannin
Analyst at Jefferies
Thank you.
Operator
System Voice
Thank you. And the next question comes from Ken Worthington with J.P. Morgan.
Ken Worthington
Analyst at J.P. Morgan
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to follow up on Rich's – comments on Aris X. So how big, you indicated that Aris X might be like a top platform periodically. How big have they been over the last six months? Like what sort of volume have they done and what tokens are offered? And CBOE was, I'd say, first or at the very least early in building crypto futures in December 2017. You guys had the right call. You were taking a chance. But it seems like CME, I don't know, somehow outmaneuvered you. They were second, but they somehow won. So give us a little context of what happened there. And then maybe lastly, CBOE launched Bitcoin futures at a peak price and then seemed to change its mind 15 months later at sort of a Bitcoin price trough. Is this flip-flopping going to make it harder for you to be successful in building a futures platform – at ARIS given that venue commitment is so important in sort of longer dated products?
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
There's a lot there. You're right, we were first to the market. As I said, we really anticipated a little quicker action on approval in the ETN and ETF space. We do appreciate incenting market makers to post quotes and to trade. But with no end in sight to the regulatory uncertainty, we decided to step back. So I wish we were smart enough to know that the price of Bitcoin was at its top. Probably would have made a trade there instead of pivoting it away and waiting for regulation and a design to be more obvious for us. With the ecosystem as we find it today, primed and ready for an exchange like ARISX, And significantly, you didn't mention the partners that we're entering this with, super important. They too see the opportunity to offer their customers access and an experience that they're used to in other asset classes. This is very important. This is not a disintermediated market where we think we should be offering direct to customer. Customers are used to the platform that they trade on. Those partners that we list, we are not getting in between them and their experience. So if they'd like to pivot from their exposure in options, SIBO's proprietary products, and on the same platform be able to trade crypto in a safe, regulated, fair way, that's the experience we're looking for. So I don't think we're chasing anyone here. Ken, it's an interesting observation. But, John, back to the coins that are on the platform today.
John Dieters
Chief Strategy Officer
Yeah, Ken. So, currently under review, additional coins and altcoins. And it's worth noting that in terms of today's bond, the platform is one of the newest out there, given the timeframe since launch is relatively short. And we believe that it has all the underpinnings to recognize pretty substantial growth. It's important to recognize that this, our involvement in this space and that the entire nicely our initial foray into it. We call that product version 1.0, cash settled, pretty simple kind of construct. We quickly learned and evolved from those learnings that the industry was demanding something different. They were demanding physical settlement. They were demanding robust clearing platform that dealt with the underlying spot in conjunction with the derivatives product. And so when we decided to take our original V1.0 product down, it was really with a mind towards doing something much more comprehensive to meet the demands of the digital asset space as market participants were telling us they wanted. So that process of kind of getting back into it with the right platform, it took some time. We were waiting for the perfect opportunity. I would say that we were attracted to ARIS X really because of the comprehensive sort of from spot through clearing and data to derivatives. It conforms very nicely with our strategy across asset classes and geographies. But as we cut to the evolution theme, as we started down the path of evaluating the deal with ARIS, And we sampled the market to ensure that we were thinking about things in a way that really resonated with market participants. This is where another step of the evolution came into play, where there was really this obvious demand for participation from market participants to be part of this initiative, to be on the cap table, to be aligned with value creation. And so we met that demand with the structure that you saw us announce last week. So really evolution, and it's a rapid evolution because the market, the digital asset space is evolving so rapidly. I don't think we could have really nearly come close to meeting the demand that the market is telling us they have for the particular type of products and services with our prior product in any sense, and this platform does it for us.
Ken Worthington
Analyst at J.P. Morgan
Great. Thanks. You gave me a lot to consider there. I appreciate it.
Operator
System Voice
Thank you. And the next question comes from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank.
Brian Bedell
Analyst at Deutsche Bank
Great. Thanks. Good morning, folks. Maybe just continuing on ARISX. I know you'll cover this much more on Investor Day, but maybe just to sort of characterize it broadly, if I'm thinking of it right, is the longer-term aim here, and I appreciate it's probably still under development, but to become say like a competitor to Coinbase, or is it more to really stay in the sort of regulated exchange space with more listed types of contracts, be they spot or futures? And I don't know if you can talk about the investment required in the 2022 outlook. Again, maybe that's investor day. coming up, but should we consider this as, I think you said two to three years for EBITDA profitability. Should we consider this as sort of a drag on earnings initially before it really gets going? Maybe just comment around that. Yeah, I'll kick off, Ryan. It's a great question.
John Dieters
Chief Strategy Officer
So the ambition here is that we really do offer a regulatorily compliant product set from spot through clearing and derivatives. And that's a little bit clear what that means when you talk about derivatives. It's a CFTC regulated platform, both clearinghouse and futures market. On the spot side of things, the industry is really hungering for this part of the demand we're talking about, hungering for a framework. And so with these partners that we have on board with us as part of our digital asset advisory committee, we intend to go to the regulators, work together collaboratively with the regulators and industry to help define what that means product by product, token by token, coin by coin. And we think that initiative and the clarity that that will potentially bring can unleash the next wave of growth in this space. So, that's the opportunity. It's very much regulated together with our market participants. And the liquidity out in the market today is really – you know, it's – despite some of the regulatory overhang here, the liquidity is impressive. But the growth in the space is so rapid that, you know, soon enough the – potentially exceed its capacity, we're creating really a regulated liquidity catch basin for the entire industry, bringing the right partners to the table to be able to establish that kind of platform. Brian Schell on the financial implications.
Brian Scheller
Executive Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Yeah, I'll go. And I think, Chris, I think we'll maybe kind of end it all. But as far as the financial elements, as we look at that, and it's The platform's built, so it's not so much a CapEx as far as that investment goes. It's going to be more around an OpEx. So, yes, and we'll give this further guidance as we get closer to close and where we are in the platform because we've already seen increasing activity and things like that. So it would be premature to give us kind of a run rate versus historical versus where we are. And when we get close to the close date, particularly as we mentioned in our announcement that we You know, we're going to have our digital advisory committee, those various partners likely taking, you know, the various equity positions in that. So those numbers could move a little bit. So we don't want to be premature in that overall number. But, yes, it's a slight drag on OpEx as we continue to build and as we continue to scale. So, again, more details on that as we get closer. And then Chris Isaacson, I think, is going to round it out.
Chris Isaacson
Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, thanks, Brian. So, I mean, these are a lot of great questions about ARISX, and it just speaks to how excited we are about it and how much interest there is in the space, and we think the timing is right. As John's mentioned, you know, in one step, we get spot data, derivatives, and clearing in a single step, and that's so consistent with our strategy and what we've done in other asset classes. I'd also say, as we looked at this asset, we see that there are There's been a ton of innovation in the digital asset space, but there still remains a trust, transparency, and data gap. And we think with ARISX, we can fill that gap with Tom Chippas and team and the platform they've built and expand on the vision that ARISX started with because of the partners we're bringing to the table. And regarding competition, we won't just have a spot market. We're having a derivatives market that will allow for physically settled futures. margin futures as John talked about. There's a big and broad vision here that we think we can fulfill with these partners, not disintermediating but embracing them so they can access all the customers, both traditional and non-traditional customers that want to trade digital assets. We'll be able to get to them through these intermediaries and this platform that's going to embrace transparency and regulation as it gets formed and clarified. And I think Tom and team have built this right. They've got the regulatory approvals that are needed. They've got the money transfer licenses in 50-plus states, CFTC approval for a futures exchange, and a designated clearing organization. So they've got a great chassis, great foundation to build upon.
Brian Bedell
Analyst at Deutsche Bank
That's great, Collier. I really appreciate all the detail.
Operator
System Voice
Thank you. And the next question comes from Alex Valstein with Goldman Sachs.
Alex Valstein
Analyst at Goldman Sachs
Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I was hoping you could expand a little bit around your plans for SIBO Global Cloud in early November here. What's the vision ultimately? How do you think it expands the addressable market and sort of consumption of your data across different participants? And maybe I can sneak in one more just since we're talking about recurring data streams. the guidance for the fourth quarter seems to apply a little bit of a decline versus third quarter run rates. So maybe you can expand on that a little bit as well.
Chris Isaacson
Chief Operating Officer
Great. I'll start with the SIBO Global Cloud, which we're very excited about going live here actually next week, next Monday. So this just furthers the theme that we want to provide better access and more ubiquitous access to our data and our products all around the world. And so we'll start with U.S. equities, futures, and indices data. Under the leadership of Kathy Clay, this new data and access solutions group that we formed earlier this year, this is just the first. We have data sets soon to be across 22 countries in equities, plus futures, options data, indices data. We'll just keep adding on to the data sets that we'll offer. We're starting this with AWS, a great strategic global partner for us, and we want to We want to access not just existing customers, but a lot of customers who may not have a cross-connect in the data center today, but would have an Internet connection to a global cloud provider like AWS. So we view this as new customer acquisition and also getting them access to data sets that they don't currently have today. Maybe I'll let Brian answer the second question.
Brian Scheller
Executive Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Yeah, thanks. that, Alex, is that that broader, I would say, kind of story and strategy and really our investment thesis on this whole area has been the increasing need for data analytics, therefore increasing the access, the increasing geography to leverage the global presence, and then increasing the methods, which is that last point you just hit on that Chris helped fill in the gap for, and then the overall and we can talk about that later. As far as the growth rate, we continue to see growth. What you're seeing is you're still going to see growth over, that's projecting growth into the fourth quarter. Over the third quarter, the rate itself may not be as great, and what we saw also, this is a little bit just kind of more of a math issue, is that the fourth quarter in last year started to pick up, where we started to see some of this momentum. So that it's just going to move the numbers down so the rate's going to appear to be a little bit lower, but the trajectory is still the same. It's going to look a little different just because we started off a slightly higher base last year. Great, thanks.
Operator
System Voice
Thank you. And the next question comes from Owen Lau with Oppenheimer.
Owen Lau
Analyst at Oppenheimer
Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. Could you please talk about if there's any synergy between the extended trading hours of SPX and VEX options as well as ChaiX? And I'm just wondering whether you would list some of your proprietary products to the exchanges in Asia to increase your distribution channel, and how should investors think about the potential incremental opportunity for SIBO when it's becoming more like a global company? Thank you.
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
So let me start because we are so excited to extend access to VIX and SPX options to global trading hours. Everything's always subject to regulatory approval. We think we're in a pretty good spot here, but that's the plan. That's an answering a demand issue. So if you think about it, you've got a position on now, and as the world becomes smaller and information flow is free, The ability to adjust open positions or to open positions around the clock is very, very important. We trade the country's benchmark here and need to be accessible 24 hours a day for sure. So that's answering the demand. We think there's great interest. Our presence in the APAC region because of our acquisition of CHIACs really allows us, boots on the ground, to tell this story and the access can be more globally. But Chris, over to you on the current update on integration and migration of Chiax APEC.
Chris Isaacson
Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, thanks, Ed. So great question, Owen. So we're super excited about our entry into Asia with Chiax Asia. Integration planning is going very well. We plan to bring bids to the region in Australia in the second half of 2022. And then the first half If 2022, we'd migrate to SIBO technology in Australia, and then thereafter we would do Japan also. So as Ed mentioned, now we have a bona fide presence in that region, and we are able to sell the full suite of our products, including SPX and VIX options and our growing set of data. So let's maybe, Brian, if you want to chime in at the end here as well.
Brian Scheller
Executive Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Yeah, so I just, again, to continue to hit that is that The boots on the ground is a key element there as we continue to expand that global network. I think it's important to remember and what that enables us to do across our network and the proprietary products and everything that we have and then leveraging those learnings and basically what does it mean to be an exchange operator and the consistency and the reliability of what that brings to the various market participants because our client base largely is a very global client base. The other is that to mention explicitly is bids as far as bringing that to market in those geographies, which we talked about. So that's on the timeline in conjunction with Chris mentioned the platform migration. And then I'll wrap it back up is the broader – I'm going to keep coming back to this – is the broader data opportunity here. We've talked about how we're not only continuing to go after more share of wallet to meet that increasing demand for data analytics, but a big part of that theme also is international expansion. the incremental analytics, you know, solving for, you know, customer, you know, capital slash margin needs. And then, again, and the crypto, which has been brought up a couple times, is that entire ecosystem of that data need, and it just continues to feed off itself and expand from a data perspective. Again, leveraging off the, called the cash slash, you know, equity side of that spot, as well as the derivatives, and then completing it with the data opportunities.
Owen Lau
Analyst at Oppenheimer
Got it. Thank you very much.
Operator
System Voice
Thank you. And the next question comes from Kyle Voigt with KBW.
Kyle Voigt
Analyst at KBW
Hi. Good morning. Maybe just a question on retail. Obviously, you've had some success with Minivix and XSP products, but it seems like Upstake has been a bit more muted relative to some other retail-oriented index product launches we've seen over the past couple of years. So maybe you can expand upon the nanos a bit and whether you think this very small contract size will kind of enable you to unlock more growth in that retail segment. And then also from a fee standpoint, is it fair to think about the fee rate being much higher than SPX or even the XSP relative to the notional contract size?
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
you'd ask because we have been talking to you about the exchanges not keeping up with retail demand in our product creation and this has been in the works for a while. We think simple, accessible, and designed for all is the theme behind Nano and it's really a simple concept. You take the retail size version of the S&P 500 spiders, for example, which is what retail is most familiar with, it's still very expensive. It's a $460 underline. What we've done is we've done a 110th version and made it super simple if you're looking at a derivative screen. If you see the market at the money, let's say one week out is $2.50 for a call, your retail investor, you're like, well, that seems pretty reasonable, except I have to multiply that by 100. And what we do on nanos is, no, it's actually 250. And what you see on the screen is what you'd be paying for that exposure to the S&P 500. So that's really simple. And the other confusion we've noticed in retail and talking to retail is, gosh, there's 30 different expiration cycles in SPX. We're still finalizing what we're going to offer day one, but think four different expiration cycles, seven days or less to expiry, and maybe 40 or 50 different series. Again, really simple. That's the goal with Nano. It is answering the demand from new retail, and we can't wait to launch this.
Brian Scheller
Executive Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
So a couple of follow-ups then on the pricing and how we think about it. Again, it'll be a little bit of a... of a repeat story as we kind of framed up when we talked about the European derivatives and pricing there is that you think that it will be obviously notionally adjusted, obviously, from the pricing standpoint. But again, we look at it from the perspective of all the participants engaged, again, to facilitate with all the partners to be able to incent that trading, making it easier, reducing friction, making it affordable. And the next question is, well, okay, if you really want to put it in that perspective, if your entire SPX volume was completely replaced by nano, would you be better off? And the answer is yes, would be even better off because as you know, there's usually a slight premium as you continue to break contracts down by size. So as it gets smaller and smaller, there tends to be a little bit more premium versus the larger size. So it's on a notionally-adjusted basis, It's slightly higher, but again, the pricing is still TBG. Look for progress as we move forward into that launch.
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
Most important part I forgot, and sorry for that. Importantly, this is a company, an education program. So you think of SIBO, you think of derivatives. We believe in recurring trading and an educated investor, and we've talked now the last few quarters about retooling our options institute. and bring them along so that derivatives that are designed to reduce risk in a really measured way is for all investors. And our Options Institute is keen on making sure that our new partners who are looking at us and our proprietary products with education in mind.
John Dieters
Chief Strategy Officer
Yeah, this is John. Just following up on that. and there's a theme here that crosses over to crypto too. You saw some names there that are really kind of the retail vanguard right now. We're creating these products and the educational programs around them in partnership with these really important retail partners of ours.
Kyle Voigt
Analyst at KBW
That's great. Thanks for all the color.
Operator
System Voice
Thank you. And the next question comes from Michael Cypress with Morgan Stanley.
Michael Cypress
Analyst at Morgan Stanley
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just continuing with the retail theme here, just on Webull, it looks like your proprietary products began trading on the Webull platform this month. Just curious what the early feedback has been. Maybe you could talk a little bit about some of the initiatives in place to drive a broader engagement on the Webull platform. And then just more broadly, how penetrated do you think you are at this point in terms of getting your products on Webull?
Ed Tilley
Chairman, President and CEO
retail platforms and if you could just maybe talk a little bit about the initiative there to get on more platforms so again i think we referred to in the past and christian would ask you to jump in in a second but we you know if we look at retail that's been around for a bit more established uh broker dealers the ones i i would be trading on over the last years we have act they have access to our proprietary products and from those platforms there's been incredible in our proprietary complex. So that has been pretty terrific, and we've been watching that, as they say, over quarters. New Retail, the one that I'm probably making headlines the most, and Webull in that group had not offered access to our proprietary products or cash-settled indices in general. So Webull, as a first mover here, we're not penetrated at all. and other new retail does not offer access to our products either. So all greenfield for us. And then we look, another measure that's super important to us is the penetration and the use case for one lot trading. And one lot trading for us makes us think that with the very high notional value of contracts in the S&P 500, even super short-dated, really is a restriction for some retail accounts who are not capitalized similarly to maybe more traditional retail, the birth of Nano. So I think we've got a pretty good runway over the next months and watching for the uptake in not only direct access into the products you know like SBX, but in Nano as we launch Nano. So, Chris, over to you.
Chris Isaacson
Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, just as Ed mentioned, we think we're just at the starting line for A lot of the new retail, the traditional retail has had access to our products and offered great access for quite a while, but the new retail is just starting and we're excited with the Webulls offered access to SPX and VIX, but we still have a lot of room to grow there. I'd also mention that they're adding new assets to their platforms and there is an intersection we think here over the long term with digital assets as well. retail customers are going to want to trade multi-asset, not just a single asset on a platform. And so many of them are offering that, and we want to provide the ultimate retail investor access to all of our products, but through these great intermediaries, these great partners. We're trying to solve the problem with the intermediaries. So we are going with the trend here and wanting to provide the access and the products that customers really want.
Michael Cypress
Analyst at Morgan Stanley
Great, thank you.
Operator
System Voice
Thank you. And as that concludes the question and answer session, I would like to return to Florida Management for any closing comments.
Ken Hill
Host
That completes our call for this morning. We appreciate your time and continue to interest in the company. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out. Thank you.
Operator
System Voice
Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. May now disconnect your lines.
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