SEC Request for Comment on Proposed NMS Plan Amendments

The SEC requests comment on proposals by the exchanges and FINRA to amend the Plan Governing the Collection, Consolidation, and Dissemination of Quotation and Transaction Information for Nasdaq-Listed Securities Traded on Exchanges on an Unlisted Trading Privilege Basis, and the Consolidated Tape and Consolidated Quotation Plans (collectively, the “Plans”) to require Plan participants to include timestamps in the trade report and bid-and-offer information that they report to the Plans’ processors, or SIPs, which will then be disseminated publicly. In the case of a Participant that is a national securities exchange, the time of the transaction or quotation is to be reported as identified in the Participant’s matching engine publication timestamp. In the case of FINRA, the time of a transaction shall be the time of execution that a FINRA member reports to a FINRA trade reporting facility and the time of a bid or offer shall be the quotation publication timestamp that the bidding or offering member reports to the FINRA quotation facility. The comment period expires June 4, 2015. See the amendment to the joint industry plan and the amendment to the Consolidated Tape Association Plan.