Management at Vesel, a financial technology platform that creates transparency and increases efficiency for listed options traders on the buy-side, recently noted that advertised stock options volume on its platform has recently surged in the wake of the extreme US stock market volatility brought on by the growing fears over the spread of the coronavirus.
Vesel Profile
Vesel is a platform that more than 150 buy-side listed options traders have registered for. The client base contains large wealth managers, hedge funds and long only asset managers. The traders use Vesel to access proprietary data on advertised options liquidity from close to 20 broker-dealers, from large global banks to boutique and mid-tier size firms, enabling them to quickly determine who the “axe” is in any specific sector, stock, industry or customized watchlist, and enhancing their ability to insure best execution for their listed options trades.
- Provide general background on your firm. When were you founded, etc.
Vesel, founded in 2014 by Joseph Wesley, a Wall Street executive with more than 20 years of trading and regulatory experience, is a private company focused on providing transparency to participants in the listed options market.
- What type of service does your firm provide? Outline the unique research or data an asset manager can receive from you that are not generally available from others?
Vesel provides unique data for asset managers: Volume League Tables for listed options trading. This is a unique level of transparency and can be based on sector, industry, stock, or also custom tailored to asset managers’ specific watchlists. The data is presented and ranked in Top 5 and Top 10 tranches and contains rankings by sell side institutional volume, number of trades and total watchlist hits.
- Who is your firm’s target market in the financial services vertical?
Asset managers of all sizes and AUMs, including family offices.
- How much history can a client obtain from you? How frequently is this data updated?
History lookback is unlimited. Frequency is custom tailored to the asset manager. As quickly as “on demand”, or daily and weekly, even all the way up to a quarterly report.
- Describe at least one “case study” of where a buy-side client used your services to save or make money as part of their trading operation.
Integrity Research interviewed one buy-side client who has been using Vesel for four years. This client says that using Vesel has enabled him to get more comfortable in meeting his best execution responsibilities associated with trading options. Using Vesel, this client can see who has been involved in a specific name or related sector so that when he calls for quotes, he knows he is dealing with a firm that has recent experience in that name or sector. As a result, all the firms he calls for quotes will give him competitive prices, thereby enabling him to get a best price.
This clientalso uses Vesel to send out indications of interest to a specific group of sell-side firms who are active in a name or sector of interest. Ultimately, this client has found that by using Vesel he has seen a marked drop in trade errors, as well as a sharp reduction in the time it takes to get prices for any options trade he wants to execute. This client estimates that through using Vesel he has reduced the amount of time necessary to shop for quotes by over 1/3rd.
- Who are some of your firm’s chief competitors in the financial services market?
Vesel is wholly unique. They are the only FinTech company who collects and distributes brokers’ advertised prices for listed options, as well as provides Options Volume League Tables.
- What makes your firm different from other firms providing similar types of data, services, or technology?
Vesel has a unique data set sourced from a large number of diverse broker-dealers who actively make markets in a wide range of listed options.
- Who are a few cornerstone clients in the financial services market that use you? How do they generally use your platform?
Restrictions and internal compliance prohibits Vesel from revealing the specific names of their clients, but the case study discussed above is consistent with the typical buy-side experience, notes Wesley, who adds that more transparency is always better for asset managers. Vesel currently counts more than 150 buy-side firms as customers ranging from wealth managers, hedge funds, and large long only asset managers.
- What is your firm’s commercial model? What is the price range for your service?
Vesel charges “per report” and can range in price from less than the price of a cup of coffee per day up to thousands per month. There is something for every single asset manager at every single price level. Vesel provides asset managers with the ability to turn on and turn off reporting at will without additional charge or penalty. Vesel data for asset managers is an “Amazon” style shopping experience; founder Wesley takes great pride in making Vesel as easy as possible for the buy side to use. Vesel is also CSA eligible.
- What are a few of your firm’s next major targets/milestones?
Vesel is in a period of rapid growth and continues to leverage that for its asset managers and sell side broker dealer clients. The firm is always developing enhancements to its user experience and plans to increase its marketing and software staff budget in 2020.
- What are a few interesting facts about your firm?
Vesel is a privately funded company. The firm’s engineers and design partners have no Wall Street experience and come from very diverse backgrounds. The firm has spent several years obtaining their unique data set and directly compliments and credits the sell side firms on its platform providing the buy side the transparency it deserves in listed options.
- Contact information
Joe Wesley, Founder and Managing Partner. (646) 831-6834. joe@veselinteractive.com