OATS Technical Specification Changes

FINRA released a new edition of the OATS Reporting Technical Specifications dated November 8, 2010. The changes described in this version of the OATS Reporting Technical Specifications include enhancements related to the FINRA rule change regarding short sales (SR-FINRA-2010-043) as well as additional validations and a new field on the Cancel/Replace report. All changes will be available in the OATS Production environment on February 28, 2011 and in the OATS Certificate Test environment on February 7, 2011.


The following is an overview of the enhancements to OATS effective on February 28, 2011:

  • Added the following fields to the Route and Combined Order/Route Report:
    • Routed Order Type Indicator (Mandatory) – Indicates whether an order was routed as a market order or a limit order. This field must be ‘L’ if the Order is routed as a Limit Order and must be ‘M’ if the Order is routed as a Market Order.
    • Route Price (Conditional) – The price at which the order is routed. Required if the Routed Order Type Indicator is set to ‘L’. If the Routed Order Type Indicator is set to ‘M’, this field must be blank.
    • ISO Indicator (Conditional) – Indicates the order was sent as an Intermarket Sweep Order (ISO). Values are ‘Y’ or blank.
    • Short Sale Exempt Indicator (Conditional) – Indicates the order may be marked “short exempt” consistent with SEC Rule 201. Values are ‘Y’ or blank.
  • Added the following new field to the Cancel/Replace Report: 
    • Originating Broker/Dealer Number – In instances of a merger or acquisition where the originating firm had open limit orders on its books that will be executed or otherwise resolved under the surviving firm, the Originating Broker/Dealer Number field must be populated on the Cancel/Replace Order Event so that the surviving firm’s Cancel/Replace Order Event can link to the originating primary order event.
  • Added the following validations:
    • 2172 – Missing or Invalid Routed Order Type Indicator
      Routed Order Type Indicator must be ‘L’ (Order Routed as a Limit Order) or ‘M’ (Order Routed as a Market Order).
    • 2173 – Missing or Invalid Route Price
      Route Price must be provided if the Routed Order Type Indicator is set to ‘L’ and must be in the correct format. 
    • 2174 – Route Price must be blank when Routed Order Type Indicator is ‘M’
      If the Routed Order Type Indicator is set to ‘M’, Route Price must not be populated.
    • 2208 – Invalid ISO Indicator
      If populated, ISO Indicator must be ‘Y’.
    • 2209 – Invalid Short Sale Exempt Indicator
      If populated, Short Sale Exempt Indicator must be ‘Y’.
    • 3032 – Issue Symbol is unrelated to Symbol reported on Originating Order
      Issue Symbol on the Cancel/Replace, Desk, Cancel, Route or Execution Report is not related to the Issue Symbol reported on the corresponding New, Combined Order/Route, Cancel/Replace, or Combined Order/Execution. Example: If the New Order Report is submitted with Issue Symbol “MSFT” and the Execution Report is submitted with Issue Symbol “YHOO”, the Execution Report will be rejected. If the New Order Report is submitted with Issue Symbol “ANLY” and the Execution Report is submitted with the related Issue Symbol “ANLYD”, the Execution Report will be accepted.
  • Modified the following validations:
    • 2157 – Invalid Originating Broker/Dealer Number
      If populated, Originating Broker/Dealer Number must be provided in the correct format on all Desk, Route, Execution, Cancel/Replace and Cancel orders.
    • 2125 – Missing or Invalid Account Type Code
      Account Type Code is now a mandatory field and must be one of the following values: ‘R’ (Retail), ‘W’ (Wholesale), ‘P’ (Proprietary), ‘E’ (Employee), ‘C’ (Combined) or ‘X’ (Error account).
  • Removed the following validation:
    • 2702 – Execution Date must be equal to Order Received Date
      The Combined Order/Execution report can only be used if the order was received and fully executed in one trade in the same calendar day.
  • Added the following permitted value for  Buy Sell Code: (Originally published in the June 7, 2010 version of the OATS Technical Specifications)
    • Short Exempt (‘SX’)
  • Removed the following permitted value for Routing Method Code:
    • ‘I’ Intermarket Sweep Order