| Data Description |
The FINRA Industry Snapshot provides a high-level overview of the industry, ranging from the number of FINRA-registered individuals to the overall revenues of firms, and from trading activity to how firms market their products and services. All of the data are reported in aggregate to respect the confidentiality of regulatory information. |
| Data Collection |
Data is collected through registration and trade activities regulated by FINRA. Registration, qualification, and market information collected as part of FINRA's regulatory oversight of the securities industry including U4, U5, BD, BDW, BR forms, Financial and Operational Combined Uniform Single (FOCUS) Reports, Corporate Financing filings, and trade reporting including off-exchange trade facilities, and trades reported to OATS, TRACE. |
| Data Purpose |
FINRA shares an annual snapshot of some of the data collected in the course of its work to increase public awareness and understanding about the broad range of FINRA-registered firms and individuals. |
| Publish Schedule |
The Industry Snapshot is published each year, usually in late spring/early summer. |
| Amendment Procedures |
FINRA regularly updates historical data series due to data revisions by reporting firms. Differences in historical series reflect changes in underlying data. |
| Notes |
- Individuals are counted only once regardless of how many firms they represent.
- The number of transfers in a given year includes all transfers associated with FINRA-registered representatives who dropped a registration with a member firm and added a registration with another member firm within 15 days before or 60 days after dropping the registration. These individuals represent a subset of all FINRA-registered representatives changing jobs within the industry. These transfers between firms include transfers from one registration type to another registration type (e.g. investment adviser registration at previous firm to registered representative registration at the new firm, “IAR -> RR”), as well as transfers for the same registration type (e.g. investment adviser registration at previous firm to same registration at the new firm, “IAR -> IAR”).
- Investment Adviser Representatives who solely deal with customers in New York, or who were solely dealing with customers in Wyoming prior to July 1, 2017, are not captured in the Central Registration Depository (CRD) system. Furthermore, owners of investment advisory firms are exempt from registering as Investment Adviser Representatives. Accordingly, these Investment Adviser Representatives are not included in the data.
- Includes only FINRA-registered firms as of year-end.
- The definition of firm size in FINRA’s By-Laws may differ from the Member Firm Business Segment definitions, which may consider total
assets and/or total revenue in categorizing a firm.
- For each branch office, a FINRA-registered firm must file a Form BR (the Uniform Branch Office Registration Form)
- Branch and firm zip codes are linked to the 2010 Urban Area to Zip Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) Relationship File. The Census Bureau identifies two types of urban areas: i) Urbanized Areas (UAs) of 50,000 or more people; ii) Urban Clusters (UCs) of at least 2,500 and less than 50,000 people. “Rural” encompasses all population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area.
- FINRA Rule 5110 requires all public offerings in which a member participates to be filed with FINRA for review, except as exempted from the filing requirement under paragraph (h)
- FINRA Rule 5122 requires firms that offer or sell retail private placements of their own securities or that of a control entity to file offering documents and information about the issuer, the offering and the selling firms before the documents are provided to investors, except as exempted from the filing requirements under section (C).
- FINRA Rule 5123 requires firms that sell non-proprietary, retail private placements to file with FINRA’s Corporate Financing Department within 15 calendar days of the date of first sale, offering documents and information about the issuer, the offering and the selling firms, except as exempted from the filing requirements under section (B).
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| Data Dictionary |
REPRESENTATIVE DATA
- Securities Industry Registered Persons represents the totality of registered individuals.
- Broker Dealer Representatives Only refers to FINRA-registered representatives.
- Dual Representatives refers to FINRA-registered representatives who are also registered as investment adviser representatives.
- Investment Adviser Representatives Only refers to individuals who are registered only as investment adviser representatives and are overseen by the SEC or state regulators.
FIRM DATA
- Firms conducting securities transactions and business with the investing public must be registered with FINRA. Firms must meet certain membership standards to attain registration.
- Firm Size. The definition of firm size in FINRA’s By-Laws may differ from the Member Firm Business Segment definitions, which may consider total
assets and/or total revenue in categorizing a firm.
- Large Firm = 500 or more registered representatives;
- Mid-Size Firm = 151-499 registered representatives;
- Small Firm = 1-150 registered representatives.
- Broker-Dealer Firms Only refers to firms that are solely registered with FINRA as broker-dealers.
- Dual Broker-Dealer and Investment-Adviser Firms refers to FINRA-registered broker-dealers who are also registered as investment adviser firms.
- Investment Adviser Firms Only refers to firms that are registered only as investment advisers and are overseen by the SEC or state regulators.
- Securities Industry Registered Firms refers to the totality of registered firms
Capital Acquisition Brokers (CABs) engage in a limited range of activities, essentially advising companies and private equity funds on capital raising and corporate restructuring, and acting as a placement agent for sales of unregistered securities to institutional investors under limited conditions. The CAB rule took effect in 2017.
Funding Portals (FPs) also engage in a limited range of activities: those prescribed under to JOBS Act and the SEC’s Regulation Crowdfunding. The FP rule took effect in 2016.
MARKET DATA
- OTC includes all FINRA facilities (the FINRA/Nasdaq TRF, the FINRA/NYSE TRF and the FINRA Alternative Display Facility). D
- OATS events are aggregated using the event date.
- OATS messages include orders, order cancellations, order modifications, new order routes and trade executions.
- The Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) facilitates the mandatory reporting of over-the-counter secondary market transactions in eligible fixed income securities. Differences in historical series reflect changes in underlying data.
- The ATS and Interdealer category includes the sell side of a trade data when (1) a trade is executed on an ATS (including ATS sales to non-members or non-member affiliates) or (2) a trade is executed between FINRA members outside of an ATS (i.e. dealer-to-dealer trades). The category excludes a FINRA member sell to an ATS. This approach takes into account multiple reporting of trades where a trade involves an ATS or both sides are FINRA members.
- The Dealer-to-Customer category includes all trades (buys and sells) reported by a FINRA member against non-members or non-member affiliates. The category excludes ATS transactions with non-members and non-member affiliates (those trades are represented in the “ATS and Interdealer” category as noted above).
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| Available Formats |
The Industry Snapshot is available as:
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| Terms of Use |
Publicly available data free for non-commercial use. |
