Document ID: SEC-2015-1132-0001
Agency: sec
Document Type: Notice
Title: Self-Regulatory Organizations; Proposed Rule Changes: Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc.
Posted Date: 2015-07-09T04:00Z

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 131 (Thursday, July 9, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 39463-39468]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-16729]

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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

[Release No. 34-75356; File No. SR-FINRA-2015-020]

Self-Regulatory Organizations; Financial Industry Regulatory 
Authority, Inc.; Notice of Filing of a Proposed Rule Change To Expand 
FINRA's Alternative Trading System (``ATS'') Transparency Initiative To 
Publish OTC Equity Volume Executed Outside ATSs

July 2, 2015.
    Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 
(``Act'') \1\ and Rule 19b-4 thereunder,\2\ notice is hereby given that 
on June 23, 2015, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. 
(``FINRA'') filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (``SEC'' 
or ``Commission'') the proposed rule change as described in Items I, 
II, and III below, which Items have been prepared by FINRA. The 
Commission is publishing this notice to solicit comments on the 
proposed rule change from interested persons.
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    \1\ 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1).
    \2\ 17 CFR 240.19b-4.
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I. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Terms of Substance 
of the Proposed Rule Change

    FINRA is proposing to expand FINRA's alternative trading system 
(``ATS'') transparency initiative to publish the remaining equity 
volume executed over-the-counter (``OTC'') by FINRA members, including, 
among other trading activity, non-ATS electronic trading systems and 
internalized trades.
    The text of the proposed rule change is available on FINRA's Web 
site at http://www.finra.org, at the principal office of FINRA and at 
the Commission's Public Reference Room.

II. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and 
Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change

    In its filing with the Commission, FINRA included statements 
concerning the purpose of and basis for the proposed rule change and 
discussed any comments it received on the proposed rule change. The 
text of these statements may be examined at the places specified in 
Item IV below. FINRA has prepared summaries, set forth in sections A, 
B, and C below, of the most significant aspects of such statements.

[[Page 39464]]

A. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and 
Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change

1. Purpose
    Under FINRA rules, each member that operates an ATS is required to 
report its weekly volume, by security, to FINRA and also must use a 
unique market participant identifier (``MPID'') for reporting order and 
trade information to FINRA. As part of these requirements, FINRA makes 
the reported volume and trade count information for equity securities 
publicly available on its Web site.\3\ Pursuant to the proposed rule 
change, FINRA is proposing to amend Rules 6110 and 6610 to expand this 
transparency initiative by publishing the remaining OTC equity (or 
``non-ATS'') volume by member firm and security.
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    \3\ FINRA currently does not publish ATS volume information 
regarding fixed income securities.
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    FINRA is proposing to derive a firm's non-ATS volume information 
directly from OTC trades reported to FINRA's equity trade reporting 
facilities.\4\ As such, members would not have any new or additional 
reporting requirements as a result of the proposed rule change. FINRA 
would base a firm's non-ATS volume on trades reported for dissemination 
purposes (or ``tape reports'') on which the firm is identified as the 
member with the trade reporting obligation.\5\ A firm's published 
trading volume information would not include trades for which the firm 
is the reported contra party,\6\ nor would it include trades that are 
reported for regulatory or clearing purposes only (or ``non-tape 
reports'').
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    \4\ FINRA's equity trade reporting facilities (collectively 
referred to herein as the ``FINRA Facilities'') are the Alternative 
Display Facility (``ADF'') and the Trade Reporting Facilities 
(``TRF''), to which members report OTC transactions in NMS stocks, 
as defined in SEC Rule 600(b) of Regulation NMS; and the OTC 
Reporting Facility (``ORF''), to which members report transactions 
in ``OTC Equity Securities,'' as defined in FINRA Rule 6420 (i.e., 
non-NMS stocks such as OTC Bulletin Board and OTC Market 
securities), as well as transactions in Restricted Equity 
Securities, as defined in FINRA Rule 6420, effected pursuant to 
Securities Act Rule 144A.
    \5\ Under FINRA rules, in a trade between a member and non-
member or customer, the member has the obligation to report the 
trade, and in a trade between two members, the ``executing party,'' 
defined as the member that receives an order for handling or 
execution or is presented an order against its quote, does not 
subsequently re-route the order, and executes the transaction, has 
the obligation to report the trade. See Rules 6282(b), 6380A(b), 
6380B(b) and 6622(b).
    \6\ FINRA is proposing to include only volume from the executing 
party perspective because otherwise, published OTC volume would be 
overstated (i.e., publishing volume from both the executing party 
and contra party perspectives would double count that executed 
volume).
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    FINRA is proposing to publish on the FINRA Web site weekly volume 
information (number of trades and shares) by firm and security, with 
limited de minimis exceptions noted below, on a two-week or four-week 
delayed basis in accordance with the time frames specified for ATS 
volume publication.\7\ Specifically, volume information would be 
published on a two-week delayed basis for NMS stocks in Tier 1 under 
the NMS Plan to Address Extraordinary Market Volatility (also referred 
to as the ``Limit Up/Limit Down Plan'') \8\ and a four-week delayed 
basis for all other NMS stocks and OTC Equity Securities.\9\
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    \7\ See Rule 4552.
    \8\ Tier 1 NMS stocks include those NMS stocks in the S&P 500 
Index or the Russell 1000 Index and certain ETPs. See NMS Plan to 
Address Extraordinary Market Volatility. FINRA will make changes to 
the Tier 1 NMS stocks in accordance with the Indices. Changes to the 
S&P 500 are made on an as needed basis and are not subject to an 
annual or semi-annual reconstitution. S&P typically does not add new 
issues until they have been seasoned for six to twelve months. 
Russell 1000 rebalancing typically takes place in June.
    \9\ FINRA notes that non-ATS volume data will be displayed in 
the same format in which ATS volume data is displayed today, i.e., 
aggregate volume for each firm across all NMS stocks (Tier 1 and all 
other NMS stocks) and OTC equity securities; aggregate volume for 
each security across all firms; and volume for each security by each 
firm (except with respect to the de minimis volume discussed below).
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    Based on feedback FINRA has received from firms, FINRA is also 
proposing to publish aggregate volume totals across all NMS stocks and 
aggregate volume totals across all OTC Equity Securities for each 
calendar month. FINRA proposes to publish monthly aggregate totals on a 
one month delayed basis, e.g., totals for the month of April would be 
published on or around June 1.
    FINRA is proposing to publish non-ATS volume information at the 
firm level and not on an MPID-by-MPID basis. FINRA believes that this 
is appropriate because outside of the ATS context, not all firms have a 
separate MPID for each unique trading center at the firm, and as such, 
publishing volume information at the MPID level may not provide 
meaningful or consistent information to the marketplace. For members 
that use more than one MPID for their non-ATS trading,\10\ FINRA 
proposes to aggregate and publish the non-ATS trading volume for all 
non-ATS MPIDs belonging to the firm under a single ``parent'' 
identifier or firm name.\11\ FINRA notes that a firm's ATS volume will 
continue to be published separately under the unique MPID(s) for each 
ATS operated by the firm.
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    \10\ For example, a firm may use separate MPIDs for its 
proprietary and agency desks.
    \11\ FINRA is able to identify all MPIDs belonging to a given 
firm based on currently available information, and as such, members 
will not have a new reporting obligation as a result of this 
proposal.
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    FINRA does not believe that publishing volume information for each 
firm that executed only a small number of trades or shares in any given 
period would provide meaningful information to the marketplace. 
Accordingly, as described in more detail below, FINRA is proposing to 
combine volume from all members that do not meet a specified minimum 
threshold and publish such ``de minimis'' volume information for those 
members on an aggregated basis. For example, if five firms each execute 
10 trades in the reporting period in a security, their 50 trades would 
be aggregated and published as a single line item; the firms and their 
volume information would not be identified separately. For a firm with 
more than one non-ATS MPID, the total volume across all of its non-ATS 
MPIDs would be combined for purposes of determining whether the de 
minimis threshold has been met.
    FINRA is proposing to establish a de minimis threshold of fewer 
than on average 200 non-ATS transactions per day executed by the firm 
across all securities or in a specific security during the one-week 
reporting period. This proposed threshold is based on the level of 
trading activity used by the SEC to identify ``small market makers'' 
for purposes of exemptive relief from the rule requiring market centers 
that trade NMS securities to make publicly available electronic reports 
that include uniform statistical measures of execution quality (SEC 
Rule 605 of Regulation NMS).\12\ In developing its proposal, FINRA 
reviewed volume statistics for firms across all securities for a one-
week period (June 23-29, 2014). This review indicated that without 
applying any threshold, approximately 300 individual firms would have 
volume attributed by name. Looking at market participants with on 
average 200 or more trades per day across all securities, approximately 
62 firms would have volume attributed by

[[Page 39465]]

name and would account for 98.99 percent of all trading volume.
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    \12\ Specifically, the SEC exempted any market center that 
reported fewer than 200 transactions per trading day on average over 
the preceding six-month period in securities that are covered by the 
rule. See letter from Annette L. Nazareth, Director, Division, to 
Richard Romano, Chair, and Carl P. Sherr, Co-Chair, NASD Small Firms 
Advisory Board, dated June 22, 2001.
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    Thus, if a firm averages fewer than 200 non-ATS transactions per 
day across all securities during the reporting period, FINRA would 
aggregate the firm's volume with that of similarly situated firms. 
Additionally, because the published volume data would be broken down by 
security, if a firm averages fewer than 200 non-ATS transactions per 
day in a given security during the reporting period, FINRA would 
aggregate the firm's volume in that security with that of similarly 
situated firms, even if the firm averages more than 200 non-ATS 
transactions per day across all securities during the reporting period. 
FINRA notes that all of the OTC volume would be published, but for 
members that meet the de minimis threshold, their volume would not be 
attributed by name.
    The proposed rule change will provide additional transparency into 
a significant portion of the OTC market.\13\ Accordingly, FINRA 
believes that the proposed rule change will enable the public to better 
understand a firm's equity trading activity off exchanges by reviewing 
the proposed non-ATS volume together with the current ATS volume 
reports. In this regard, FINRA notes that during the rulemaking process 
on the ATS transparency initiative, some commenters recommended 
broadening the proposal to include trade information for other OTC 
execution venues.
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    \13\ For example, for the period from March 16 through April 10, 
2015, approximately 59 percent of the share volume of OTC trades in 
NMS stocks was executed outside an ATS.
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    FINRA considered whether dividing published volume information into 
more granular categories, such as by trading capacity (i.e., principal 
versus agency or riskless principal) or by participant type (e.g., 
market maker), would be feasible or provide additional meaningful or 
reliable information to market participants. Segregating the data, 
e.g., by trading desk, would entail potentially significant development 
work by firms to sufficiently identify the activity for FINRA (e.g., 
volume attributable to a market making desk) and may not be consistent 
across firms, while also leading to some concerns about information 
leakage. Thus, FINRA is not proposing at this time to publish the non-
ATS volume data at more granular levels than by firm and security.
    In developing its approach, FINRA staff solicited industry input 
prior to presenting the proposal to FINRA's Board of Governors in 
September 2014. In addition to discussing the proposal with a number of 
FINRA's industry advisory committees, FINRA staff also informally 
consulted a number of firms, including large and mid-size firms with a 
variety of business models, as well as two buy-side firms. The 
committees and all but one of the consulted firms were generally 
supportive of the proposal. Some of the consulted firms noted that the 
published volume information would provide market participants with a 
better sense of flow in a given market segment and would most likely be 
used for purposes of market share or other longer-term quantitative 
market analysis. However, because publication of the data necessarily 
would be delayed, the consulted firms believe that it would likely not 
be a valuable tool for such purposes as analyzing execution quality or 
making day-to-day order routing and trading decisions.
    Several of the consulted firms and committee members expressed some 
concern about the potential for information leakage. The consulted 
firms agreed on the importance of delaying publication of non-ATS 
volume information, noting that the closer to real-time the information 
is published, the greater the risks that would result from disclosing a 
market participant's trading activity. One of the consulted firms was 
concerned about publication of non-ATS volume information at the market 
participant and security level, even on a delayed basis, asserting that 
other market participants would be able to download data associated 
with the firm's trading activity, re-engineer it to discern patterns of 
historical trading and identify similar patterns in future trading that 
could be used to their advantage (and to the firm's disadvantage). Even 
the firms that were generally supportive of the proposal to publish 
non-ATS volume information indicated that they would have concerns if 
the information were published at a more granular level.\14\
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    \14\ For example, with respect to publishing data according to 
trading capacity, several of the consulted firms expressed concern 
that a market participant's large position holdings could be 
discerned from the data (e.g., accumulations of proprietary 
positions in advance of ETF creations or secondary offerings). 
Similarly, the consulted firms did not believe that there would be 
value in getting more granular information, e.g., according to desk 
or department, noting that since the data would be historical and 
not real-time, it would not change behavior in terms of accessing 
liquidity. One firm commented that more granular information would 
not be reliable or consistent across firms, because not every firm 
has the same business model or desk structure. In addition, several 
of the firms indicated that they would be less supportive of a 
proposal that requires them to comply with a new reporting regime or 
undertake development work to be able to identify, e.g., volume 
attributable to a market making desk.
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    FINRA believes it has taken appropriate steps to address firms' 
concerns by delaying publication and limiting the granularity of the 
published information to firm and security. The proposed rule change is 
similar to the approach currently taken with respect to ATS volume 
information, and firms have not come to FINRA with any complaints 
regarding information leakage since FINRA began publishing ATS volume 
information. However, following implementation of the proposed rule 
change, FINRA will consider whether modifications are appropriate, 
e.g., to the scope of published information or the delay between 
trading activity and publication, based on feedback it may receive from 
interested parties, including firms and users of the data.
    One of the consulted firms also indicated that FINRA should not 
charge for the data, noting that the potential value is diminished if 
it is another cost center for the industry. FINRA notes that it has 
determined not to charge a fee for the data that would be published 
pursuant to the proposed rule change and will make non-ATS OTC volume 
information available to the public for free in a downloadable format.
    In addition to the oral feedback discussed above, FINRA solicited 
written comments on the proposal in Regulatory Notice 14-48 (November 
2014), which are summarized below.
    FINRA proposes that the effective date of the proposed rule change 
will be no later than 180 days after Commission approval. Thus, FINRA 
anticipates that it will begin publication of data in accordance with 
the proposed rule change in the fourth quarter of 2015 or first quarter 
of 2016 and will announce the specific date in a Regulatory Notice.
2. Statutory Basis
    FINRA believes that the proposed rule change is consistent with the 
provisions of Section 15A(b)(6) of the Act,\15\ which requires, among 
other things, that FINRA rules must be designed to prevent fraudulent 
and manipulative acts and practices, to promote just and equitable 
principles of trade, and, in general, to protect investors and the 
public interest. FINRA believes that the proposed rule change will 
provide additional transparency into a significant portion of the OTC 
market and that the increased transparency will enable market 
participants and investors to better understand a firm's trading

[[Page 39466]]

volume and market share in the equity market.
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    \15\ 15 U.S.C. 78o-3(b)(6).
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B. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement on Burden on Competition

    FINRA does not believe that the proposed rule change will result in 
any burden on competition that is not necessary or appropriate in 
furtherance of the purposes of the Act. FINRA has undertaken an 
economic impact assessment, as set forth below, to analyze the 
regulatory need for the proposed rule change, its potential economic 
impacts, including anticipated costs and benefits, and the alternatives 
FINRA considered in assessing how to best meet its regulatory 
objectives.
Regulatory Need
    FINRA's current rules require each member that operates an ATS to 
report its weekly trade volume information to FINRA. As part of these 
requirements, FINRA makes the information for equity securities 
available to the public, thereby providing market participants and 
investors useful information about trading activity in the ATS segment 
of the OTC equity market. The proposed rule change will expand this 
transparency initiative by publishing the remaining OTC equity volume 
reported to FINRA. The increased transparency will enable the market to 
better understand a firm's trading volume, its market share in the 
equity market and the amount of OTC trading in each equity security.
Anticipated Benefits
    The proposed rule change would expand the benefits of FINRA's ATS 
transparency initiative by providing additional transparency to the 
remaining equity volume executed in the non-ATS segment of the OTC 
equity market. The trading activity in this non-ATS segment represents 
a significant portion of the overall equity trading in the OTC 
market.\16\ The increased transparency would enable market participants 
and investors to better understand the overall equity trading in the 
OTC market as well as the amount of OTC trading in individual equity 
securities. Furthermore, the expansion of transparency would help the 
marketplace better understand a firm's overall OTC trading of equities, 
thereby enhancing their understanding of executing firms' trading 
volume and market shares in the equity market.
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    \16\ See, e.g., Laura Tuttle, ``OTC Trading: Description of Non-
ATS OTC Trading in National Market System Stocks'' (March 2014). 
Tuttle reports that the non-ATS segment of the OTC market in NMS 
stocks is larger than the ATS segment.
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Anticipated Costs
    The proposed rule change would not impose any additional reporting 
requirements on firms since FINRA will directly derive the non-ATS 
volume data from OTC trades reported to FINRA's equity trade reporting 
facilities. As a result, the proposed rule would have minimal impact on 
firms from a systems development and reporting perspective.
Other Economic Impacts
    In developing this proposal, FINRA considered whether a firm's 
trading strategy could be discerned from the published data. FINRA 
believes that the proposed rule change mitigates such information 
leakage concerns by delaying the publication of trading volumes and by 
limiting the granularity of the published information. The proposed 
rule change is a well-calibrated effort to reduce information leakage 
concerns and to provide market participants access to meaningful 
information on non-ATS trading activity. FINRA believes that the 
proposed rule change will not impose differential risks of information 
leakage on firms. Moreover, by expanding transparency to all OTC equity 
trading by FINRA members, the proposed rule change would bridge gaps in 
information published across ATS versus non-ATS segments of the OTC 
equity market, thereby reducing any competitive distortions that may be 
associated with such information gaps.
Alternatives
    In considering how to best meet its regulatory objectives, FINRA 
considered several alternatives to particular features of this proposed 
rule change. For example, FINRA considered whether publishing volume 
information at a more granular level (e.g. by trading capacity or by 
participant type) would provide additional useful information to market 
participants, and the costs associated with such an alternative. FINRA 
believes that segregating the data, e.g., by trading desk, would entail 
significant development work by firms, without commensurate benefit to 
market participants. In addition, as discussed in more detail above, 
several commenters raised concerns about information leakage with 
publishing more granular data. Accordingly, FINRA has determined not to 
publish data at a more granular level than by firm and security.
    FINRA also considered publishing non-ATS volume information at the 
MPID level, as opposed to the firm level. FINRA believes that 
publishing information at the firm level is more appropriate because 
not all firms have a separate MPID for each unique trading center at 
the firm. Accordingly, publishing volume information at the firm level 
would likely provide more consistent information to the marketplace.
    In developing this proposal, FINRA also considered alternative 
approaches related to publishing volume information for firms with 
minimal non-ATS trading activity. As discussed in more detail above, 
FINRA does not believe that publishing volume information separately 
for each firm with minimal trading would provide meaningful information 
to the marketplace. Accordingly, FINRA is proposing to combine volume 
from all members with trading activity below a de minimis threshold of 
on average 200 transactions per day. FINRA considered several 
alternative de minimis thresholds and solicited comment on these 
alternatives in Regulatory Notice 14-48. FINRA believes that the 
proposed de minimis threshold is reasonable as it would account for the 
vast majority \17\ of the total non-ATS trading volume and is also 
consistent with the level of trading activity used by the SEC to 
identify ``small market makers'' for SEC Rule 605 of Regulation NMS.
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    \17\ As discussed above, based on its review of recent trading 
volume statistics, FINRA estimates that the proposed de minimis 
threshold would account for approximately 99% of the overall non-ATS 
trading volume, and as a result the vast majority of the trading 
volume would be attributed by firm name under the proposed rule 
change.
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C. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement on Comments on the Proposed 
Rule Change Received From Members, Participants, or Others

    The proposed rule change was published for comment in Regulatory 
Notice 14-48 (November 2014). Three comments were received in response 
to the Regulatory Notice.\18\ A copy of the Regulatory Notice is 
attached as Exhibit 2a.\19\ Copies of the comment letters

[[Page 39467]]

received in response to the Regulatory Notice are attached as Exhibit 
2c. The comments are summarized below.
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    \18\ See Letter from St[eacute]phane Ty[ccaron], Co-founder, 
Quincy Data, LLC to Marcia E. Asquith, Corporate Secretary, FINRA, 
dated January 9, 2015 (``QD Letter''); letter from John Ramsay, 
Chief Market Policy and Regulatory Officer, IEX Services LLC to 
Marcia E. Asquith, Corporate Secretary, FINRA, dated February 12, 
2015 (``IEX Letter''); and letter from Theodore R. Lazo, Managing 
Director and Associate General Counsel, Securities Industry and 
Financial Markets Association, to Marcia E. Asquith, Corporate 
Secretary, FINRA, dated February 20, 2015 (``SIFMA Letter'').
    \19\ The Commission notes that the Exhibits referred to herein, 
as well as the comment letters cited in the footnotes, are attached 
to the filing itself and not to this Notice.
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    All three commenters generally supported the proposal. One 
commenter specifically noted that the data can be used by market 
participants, regulators and academics to better understand and track 
trends in OTC trading generally, and can also help investors better 
evaluate the routing and execution practices of individual firms.\20\ 
This commenter agreed with the proposal to publish non-ATS volume 
information at the firm (rather than MPID) level, while another 
commenter disagreed with this aspect of the proposal, stating that the 
trade publication should identify the matching engine with a unique 
identifier.\21\ FINRA agrees that publication at the MPID level makes 
sense in the context of ATS executions; however, as noted above, 
outside of the ATS context, not all firms have a separate MPID for each 
unique trading center at the firm, and as such, publishing volume 
information at the MPID level may not provide meaningful or consistent 
information to the marketplace.
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    \20\ See IEX Letter.
    \21\ See QD Letter.
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    One commenter agreed with the proposal to aggregate volume 
information for firms with a de minimis amount of OTC volume, noting 
that it is a reasonable way to assure that the published information 
will be meaningful and free of the ``noise'' that could otherwise arise 
from a broader publication measure.\22\ On the other hand, another 
commenter disagreed with the proposal to aggregate data for firms with 
a de minimis amount of trading, noting that they believe in simple 
rules with no exceptions.\23\ However, this commenter did not discuss 
the potential value of publishing unaggregated volume information for 
firms with only a small number of trades. As discussed above, FINRA 
does not believe that publishing volume information below the proposed 
de minimis threshold would provide meaningful information to the 
marketplace.
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    \22\ See IEX Letter.
    \23\ See QD Letter.
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    One commenter suggested using an alternate notional volume measure 
as part of the de minimis threshold so that firms doing relatively few 
trades but in large notional volume are included.\24\ FINRA believes 
that the potential costs and additional resources, including technology 
infrastructure, that would be required to implement a second de minimis 
threshold measure would outweigh any potential benefit. In addition, 
FINRA is concerned that utilizing two different threshold measures may 
be confusing to consumers of the data, and believes that a single 
threshold measure, based on number of trades, would be the simplest and 
easiest to understand. However, as noted above, following 
implementation of the proposed rule change, FINRA will consider whether 
modifications are appropriate, including whether changes to the de 
minimis threshold would be appropriate, based on feedback it may 
receive from interested parties.
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    \24\ See IEX Letter.
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    Another commenter expressed concern that the proposed two-week 
publication timeframe for Tier 1 NMS stocks may result in unintended 
information leakage, and in particular disclosure of large 
institutional trades, which could enable reverse engineering of those 
trades if published within two weeks of execution.\25\ To address the 
information leakage concerns, this commenter recommended aggregation on 
a monthly, not weekly basis, and publishing on a four-week delayed 
basis. Another commenter stated that a delay of one month is sufficient 
to enable broker-dealers to manage their risk, but also recommended 
that FINRA consider the shortest publication time that provides enough 
time to manage the risk of a position, which could differ by security 
class (e.g., two weeks for liquid equities and six months for illiquid 
bonds).\26\ This commenter further noted that it supports the 
publication of complete and fully granular data, without specifying the 
level of granularity or how to mitigate the attendant risk of 
information leakage.\27\
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    \25\ See SIFMA Letter.
    \26\ See QD Letter. FINRA notes that the proposed rule change 
applies only to OTC equity volume; information for fixed income 
securities would not be published as part of this proposal.
    \27\ See QD Letter.
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    As discussed above, FINRA considered the potential for information 
leakage in developing its proposal and believes that it has taken 
adequate steps to mitigate that potential by, among other things, 
proposing to publish non-ATS volume information on the same delayed 
basis that is used for ATS volume data, as well as at the firm, rather 
than MPID, level and not further segregating volume information by 
trading capacity or trading desk.
    One commenter opposes FINRA charging for non-ATS volume 
information.\28\ As noted above, FINRA has determined not to charge for 
the non-ATS volume information that would be published pursuant to the 
proposed rule change.
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    \28\ See SIFMA Letter.
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    Finally, several comments submitted on Regulatory Notice 14-48 are 
not germane to the proposal. One commenter urged FINRA to eliminate the 
current requirement for ATSs to report volume information to FINRA.\29\ 
FINRA notes that elimination of the ATS volume reporting requirement 
will be addressed in a separate proposed rule change by FINRA. Another 
commenter proposed an alternative to the consolidated audit trail,\30\ 
which is not germane to the proposed rule change and does not warrant a 
specific response.
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    \29\ See SIFMA Letter.
    \30\ See QD Letter.
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III. Date of Effectiveness of the Proposed Rule Change and Timing for 
Commission Action

    Within 45 days of the date of publication of this notice in the 
Federal Register or within such longer period (i) as the Commission may 
designate up to 90 days of such date if it finds such longer period to 
be appropriate and publishes its reasons for so finding or (ii) as to 
which the self-regulatory organization consents, the Commission will:
    (A) By order approve or disapprove such proposed rule change, or
    (B) institute proceedings to determine whether the proposed rule 
change should be disapproved.

IV. Solicitation of Comments

    Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views, and 
arguments concerning the foregoing, including whether the proposed rule 
change is consistent with the Act. Comments may be submitted by any of 
the following methods:

Electronic Comments

     Use the Commission's Internet comment form (http://www.sec.gov/rules/sro.shtml); or
     Send an email to rule-comments@sec.gov. Please include 
File Number SR-FINRA-2015-020 on the subject line.

Paper Comments

     Send paper comments in triplicate to Secretary, Securities 
and Exchange Commission, 100 F Street NE., Washington, DC 20549-1090.

All submissions should refer to File Number SR-FINRA-2015-020. This 
file number should be included on the subject line if email is used. To 
help the Commission process and review your comments more efficiently, 
please use only one method. The Commission will

[[Page 39468]]

post all comments on the Commission's Internet Web site (http://www.sec.gov/rules/sro.shtml). Copies of the submission, all subsequent 
amendments, all written statements with respect to the proposed rule 
change that are filed with the Commission, and all written 
communications relating to the proposed rule change between the 
Commission and any person, other than those that may be withheld from 
the public in accordance with the provisions of 5 U.S.C. 552, will be 
available for Web site viewing and printing in the Commission's Public 
Reference Room, 100 F Street NE., Washington, DC 20549, on official 
business days between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Copies of 
such filing also will be available for inspection and copying at the 
principal office of FINRA. All comments received will be posted without 
change; the Commission does not edit personal identifying information 
from submissions. You should submit only information that you wish to 
make available publicly. All submissions should refer to File Number 
SR-FINRA-2015-020 and should be submitted on or before July 30, 2015.

    For the Commission, by the Division of Trading and Markets, 
pursuant to delegated authority.\31\
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    \31\ 17 CFR 200.30-3(a)(12).
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Robert W. Errett,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2015-16729 Filed 7-8-15; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 8011-01-P