OATS Report - Passing Routed Order IDs via ACES

December 17, 2004

On November 24, 2004 NASDAQ issued a letter to ACES subscribers concerning translation issues in ACES that result in the routing and receiving firms reporting different OATS Routed Order IDs to OATS. NASDAQ's proposed short-term solution is for both routing and receiving firms to remove the spaces between the Branch and Sequence number when reporting the Routed Order ID to OATS.  This solution is consistent with NASD's guidance posted in the OATS Report article Matching OATS Routed Order IDs on Orders Routed via Nasdaq's ACES System on September 2, 2004. 

 
NASDAQ posted new ACES specifications on December 21, 2004.  The specifications allow for Order Entry firms to transmit the Branch Sequence number to ACES without interval spaces beginning on January 12, 2005.  As of that date, however, market makers will still receive the Branch/Sequence numbers with embedded spaces.  NASD continues to recommend that the embedded spaces be eliminated when reporting the Routed Order ID to OATS. 

As of April 2005,  ACES plans to eliminate the embedded space between the Branch and Sequence numbers that ACES passes through to the receiving firms. 

 
Please contact the OATS Helpdesk at 1-800-321-NASD with any question regarding this notice or on OATS in general.