The CBOE automated away the missing stock price by calculating a synthetic underlying.

Evidence

CBOE market makers soon learned that stock prices on NASDAQ screens were, in practice, indicative only. One could not be sure of a genuine price for a large transaction until one telephoned a dealer, and there were suspicions that at crucial moments telephones were left unanswered for critical seconds. … So, in 1986, the CBOE launched its first “Autoquote” system. In the crowds within which NASDAQ options were traded, CBOE employees would feed in the prices of the most liquid options, those with strike price close to the current stock price. Autoquote software implementing the Black- Scholes equation would then generate the price of a “synthetic underlying,” in other words, calculate the stock price compatible with those option prices. — Donald MacKenzie & Yuval Millo, Constructing a Market, Performing Theory, 130

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The Autoquote system inverting the model to infer a synthetic underlying price is a concrete infrastructure case parallel to the trees-as-infrastructure essay’s theme of technical systems quietly reshaping what counts as real.
• XREF: connects to: Options can be synthetically manufactured by shifting between stocks and cash as prices move. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 793; Derivatives let investors trade an asset’s attributes without the asset itself — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media: How Wall Street…, 486; By the late 1990s the CBOE trading floor was so computerized it self-heated — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 898

Related

• The Black-Scholes equation’s assumption of known underlying prices failed on NASDAQ’s dealer structure. (similarity 0.86)
• Options can be synthetically manufactured by shifting between stocks and cash as prices move. (similarity 0.81)
• A pricing model runs inside the exchange’s automated trading machinery. (similarity 0.80)
• By 2000 automated quoting generated prices for options with near-zero actual trading (similarity 0.80)
• By the late 1990s the CBOE trading floor was so computerized it self-heated (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Options can be synthetically manufactured by shifting between stocks and cash as prices move. #expands (0.85) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 793
• Derivatives let investors trade an asset’s attributes without the asset itself #expands (0.80) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 486
• By the late 1990s the CBOE trading floor was so computerized it self-heated #exemplifies (0.75) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 898