New Data on OTC Equity Trading Now Available, FINRA Announces

Additional Transparency Covers About 20% of All Trading in National Market System Equities

WASHINGTON — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) today announced that expanded data on over-the-counter (OTC) trading in equity securities is now live, extending FINRA's trading-volume transparency to all of the OTC market.

With this enhancement, FINRA is supplementing the data that it currently makes available on trading by alternative trading systems (ATSs) including venues known as "dark pools" with new data on all other equities volume executed OTC by FINRA members (non-ATS OTC volume). The additional data covers approximately 20 percent of all trading volume in National Market System equities.

"Enhanced disclosure of over-the-counter trading serves the interests of investors and other market participants by enabling them to better understand a firm's trading volume and market share. Taken together with FINRA's current reporting on alternative trading systems, the new data completes a holistic picture of trading that investors can use to make better-informed trading decisions," said FINRA Chairman and CEO Richard Ketchum.

Beginning today, the non-ATS OTC volume is being published on the same schedule as that for ATS volume: a two-week delay for stocks in Tier 1 of the National Market System (NMS) Plan to Address Extraordinary Market Volatility (i.e., those NMS stocks in the S&P 500 Index or the Russell 1000 Index and certain ETPs) and a four-week delay for all other NMS stocks and OTC equity securities. In addition, a firm's aggregate non-ATS volume for each month is being published on a one-month delayed basis.

For firms that execute fewer than 200 non-ATS transactions per day on average during the reporting period (weekly or monthly), FINRA combines and reports the volume for all such firms on an aggregated, non-attributed basis.

The expanded transparency is the latest in a series of FINRA measures that increase public visibility into off-exchange trading. In June 2014, FINRA began providing aggregate weekly volume information and number of trades, by security, in equity securities, for each ATS. In July 2015, FINRA began making the ATS data available free of charge to all users.

FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States. FINRA is dedicated to investor protection and market integrity through effective and efficient regulation and complementary compliance and technology-based services. FINRA touches virtually every aspect of the securities business – from registering and educating all industry participants to examining securities firms, writing rules, enforcing those rules and the federal securities laws, and informing and educating the investing public. In addition, FINRA provides surveillance and other regulatory services for equities and options markets, as well as trade reporting and other industry utilities. FINRA also administers the largest dispute resolution forum for investors and firms. For more information, please visit www.finra.org.