Options Symbology as an Industry Utility

George Tull, CEO and President of Symbol Master Inc., recently discussed how the firm arbitrates options data across the OCC, OPRA, and exchanges to maintain data integrity across the National Market System, and how the company is expanding its volatility analytics to cover 25 countries. Speaking at the Options Industry Conference and featured in John Lothian News (June 2026), Tull outlined Symbol Master’s strategy for becoming essential infrastructure as options trading evolves globally.

How does Symbol Master arbitrate options data across the industry?

Symbol Master acts as an industry utility. The company consumes sources from exchanges and the OCC, with direct connections into OPRA, arbitrating across three separate self-regulated organizations to determine how the security master runs. In practice, arbitration means ensuring that when the same options contract is listed across multiple exchanges, a common occurrence in the National Market System, Symbol Master validates, reconciles, and publishes a single authoritative version of that data. This prevents order flow platforms, analytics tools, and trading systems from making decisions based on conflicting or stale information. George oversees enterprise validation software across 20 core options exchanges, guaranteeing content traceability and data quality that market participants can trust. Learn more about Symbol Master’s arbitration and data services →

What do Symbol Master’s three data pillars cover?

The business runs on three pillars: reference data for options contracts and symbols, end-of-day and start-of-day pricing as a “golden copy” for the street, and analytics layered on top. Reference data includes everything needed to identify and describe a contract, fields like Series Ext that capture the specific characteristics of an options series. The firm looks at equities, ETFs, and indices that are standardized options in North America, and also specializes in flex options, aggregating all that content through their database and providing analytics on both standardized symbols and flex options. Explore Symbol Master’s full coverage →

How far does the volatility coverage reach?

Over the last three and a half years, Symbol Master started working on a volatility suite of offerings after noticing that volatility would be essentially one of the main focus areas of the markets both domestically and globally. The firm now covers about 25 countries in their volatility offering, leveraging SSVI and SABR models to produce output and coverage across those markets. “We’re looking at those markets in comparison to how other markets are behaving from a volatility perspective,” Tull says. Volatility itself breaks into three buckets: realized volatility (what actually happened in the market), historic volatility (the trend over time), and implied volatility (what the market expects going forward). Understanding these distinctions, and how they interact across 25 geographies, is what drives Symbol Master’s analytics. [PLACEHOLDER: Quote from George or Albert explaining why Symbol Master runs both SSVI and SABR models, and what dual-model coverage gives clients] For a deeper dive into how volatility analytics inform risk management decisions, see the Options Data Risk Management Guide →

Where is the options market headed next?

The level of use of options is increasing significantly, with hundred percent growth in terms of options business over the last three and a half years. Looking forward, Tull sees the market moving toward flex options for individuals on their portfolio construct so they can create principal protection and ensure their retirement assets are secured. “I think this is one of the main things that the industry is moving towards.” This aligns with Symbol Master’s current capabilities, explore flex options coverage → which Symbol Master provides today alongside standardized options analytics. However, not all options trends are sustainable. Zero-day options (zero-DTE trades) have drawn retail interest, but Tull characterizes this segment as “kind of hype,” noting that many investors treat these instruments as binary bets without fully understanding they’re expiring the same day. In contrast, the shift toward flex options for portfolio construction represents structural, lasting change in how institutions and individuals think about risk management. Understanding how to evaluate these opportunities is covered in the How to Analyze Options: A Practical Guide for Financial Professionals →

What this means for your data stack

If you’re building volatility models, managing options-based portfolios, or seeking new trading opportunities, Symbol Master’s arbitrated data across exchanges, OPRA, and the OCC, combined with analytics covering 25 countries, provides the foundation to compete with confidence. Quality reference data, trusted EOD/SOD pricing, and multi-market volatility coverage eliminate the friction of managing disparate data sources. Contact Symbol Master → to learn more about how its solutions fit your data stack.