Many exchanges offer cross order types that allow a submitter to match potential price improvement offered by other exchange participants, up to a limit prescribed by the submitter (an “Auction Price Cap”). Related Exchange terminology includes “AutoMatch”, “No-Worse-Than” and “Step-Up”.

Beginning July 1, 2024, when routing a paired option order to an options exchange with an instruction that the contra party is willing to meet price improvement offered by other exchange participants, Industry Members must include one of the “Auction Price Cap” handlingInstructions values: ‘APCL’ (Auction Price Cap Limit) or ‘APCM’ (Auction Price Cap Market). If the exchange member only wishes to match price improvement to a specified amount, the ‘APCL’ handlingInstructions value must be used. If the exchange member is willing to match any price improvement, the ‘APCM’ handlingInstructions value must be used. These handlingInstructions values must only be populated on the contra-side options route event to the exchange. The ‘APCL’ and ‘APCM’ handlingInstructions values must only be used in combination with the pairedOrderID field. These values are required on paired orders routed directly to an exchange (when applicable), although may be optionally reported if the pairedOrderID field is also optionally populated. See FAQ K20 for further information on paired orders.