Are financial markets in North America ready for exchanges that operate nonstop or as close as possible to a 24-hour cycle per day? We may find out next year as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month issued an order approving the registration application of 24X National Exchange, LLC, which plans to operate… Read More >>
Trump’s SEC May Be Less Aggressive On Fines
(The Trump team is moving fast to get its cabinet nominees in order, and Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner under President George W. Bush, has been tapped to head the SEC. If Atkins wins the approval of the U.S. Senate, he will succeed Gary Gensler, who steps down on Inauguration Day. FTF News asked… Read More >>
Is the SEC at a Digital Assets Crossroads?
(SEC Chair Gary Gensler will be stepping down from the top spot for the U.S. regulator on January 20, 2025, which means the new Trump administration will be looking for a replacement. Trump is likely to name a chairperson who has a more favorable stance toward digital assets and would be far less aggressive than… Read More >>
SEC Green-Lights Half-Penny Stocks
While the world was watching and waiting for the Fed to cut interest rates, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a rare, quiet, bipartisan, and unanimous decision adopted “amendments to certain rules under Regulation NMS [National Market System]” that will allow U.S. stock exchanges to have transactions via increments of half a penny —… Read More >>
Get Ready for More Form N-PORT Reporting!
An overhaul is coming for Form N-PORT via amendments recently passed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). “Form N-PORT reports provide important information about a fund’s portfolio holdings and related information to help assess a fund’s risks,” the SEC explains. “The Form N-PORT amendments will require … generally registered open-end funds, registered closed-end funds,… Read More >>
Firms Need to Prepare for Sec Lending Reporting
(Last year, the SEC approved Rule 10c-1a, intended to bring new transparency to securities lending transactions via reporting and dissemination requirements. Earlier this year, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) proposed a new facility allowing covered securities loan transactions to be reported to the self-regulatory organization (SRO) for U.S. broker-dealers. The proposed system, the Securities… Read More >>
SEC Launches Interagency Effort to Bolster Enforcement
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement has launched the Interagency Securities Council (ISC) to better coordinate enforcement among federal, state, and local agencies, SEC officials say. The ISC will involve representatives from “more than 100 departments and agencies, including federal agencies, state offices of attorneys general and state police, and local police departments… Read More >>
FICC Debuts Risk Tool for U.S. Treasury Clearing
Industry players in U.S. Treasury transaction markets can now access a free, public-facing Value at Risk (VaR) calculator that will help them comply with SEC rules that will expand clearing requirements for them. The DTCC’s Fixed Income Clearing Corp. (FICC) has launched the new tool, accessible via a web browser, which provides “the ability to… Read More >>
North America’s Rocky Road to T+1 Begins
Like it or not, North American firms are getting new plumbing for settlement. Settlement within the shorter time frame of the trading day plus another day, or T+1, is becoming a reality for North American firms, starting with those firms in Canada and Mexico, and with a nod to South America, Argentina, on Monday, May 27,… Read More >>
SEC Report Offers Useful Stats On Trillions of Dollars
The SEC mostly taketh when it comes to data, regulatory forms, and ongoing reports. But every once in a while the regulator giveth as far as key data about trillions of dollars flowing through the securities industry. In particular, SEC staff has just released a new report, “Registered Fund Statistics,” that is based on “aggregated… Read More >>
