New York, March 19, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Operating Committees of the Securities Information Processors (SIPs) today announced that Bob Books has been elected to serve as chair.

Mr. Books has extensive experience with the SIPs, having been an active participant in committee matters over the past eight years and the head of a number of subcommittees and working groups. He succeeds NYSE Chicago’s Emily Kasparov, who served as chair for four years.

“The SIPs have made meaningful performance improvements, and I view my new role as an opportunity to continue that work,” said Books. “In the last few years, the SIPs have dramatically reduced latency for the CTA and UTP quote and trade feeds. We continue to work on reducing those numbers further, as we also focus on keeping uptime at 100 percent.”

When asked about his takeaways from Ms. Kasparov’s time as committee chair, Mr. Books responded, “Emily was committed to two major goals: streamlining processes to allow the SIPs to implement new initiatives swiftly and working toward increased transparency. I plan to continue on both those fronts.”

“During her term, we vastly expanded the number of Advisory Committee members, from five to 11, which enabled us to hear more feedback from a wider range of market participants,” he said. “We also released a detailed summary of the revenue allocation formula and, since March of last year, we have been posting quarterly performance metrics and revenue reports. These are all important steps that have increased transparency.”

“The Operating Committees of the SIPs are in great shape with Bob Books at the helm,” commented Ms. Kasparov. “Bob is a highly respected industry veteran who knows market structure exceptionally well. He has already contributed a great deal to the SIPs.”

Bob Books works for Cboe Global Markets in the Market Structure and Functionality group. He focuses on product design and strategy for the exchange group’s four U.S. equity exchanges. Mr. Books also chairs the NMS Limit Up - Limit Down (“LULD”) Operating Committee.

Previously, Mr. Books worked at the International Securities Exchange (“ISE”) on the original design of the firm’s stock exchange, and joined Direct Edge when ISE took an ownership stake in it. Mr. Books joined Bats in 2014, following its acquisition of Direct Edge, and Cboe Global Markets following its acquisition of Bats.

With extensive experience in equities and exchange trading, Mr. Books also held roles at Bridge Information Systems, where he oversaw the design and implementation of a pioneering institutional broker-neutral equity order routing system. His career began at the American Stock Exchange in 1975, where Mr. Books worked on trading floor automation projects.

Mr. Books holds a Bachelor of Science in commerce and engineering from Drexel University and an MBA in finance from New York University. Mr. Books holds Series 7 and 63 licenses.

ABOUT THE SIPs

The “SIPs” (Securities Information Processors) link the U.S. markets by processing and consolidating all protected equities bid/ask quotes and trades from every registered exchange and FINRA’s Alternative Display Facility (ADF) into a single, easily consumable data feed. The SIPs are an asset unique to U.S. market structure and play a critical role in making the U.S. equities markets transparent and accessible to investors worldwide.