On Friday April 8, 2022, FINRA CAT published a significant number of updates to the CAIS Technical Specifications. The CAIS Working Group call for this Wednesday at 11 am will focus on these updates. In addition, starting on Monday April 18 at 11 am, FIF will schedule weekly calls to review these updates to the Technical Specifications. These Monday calls will be in addition to the regularly scheduled Wednesday and Friday CAIS calls and will continue until the review of these updates has been completed. The CAIS call for Friday April 15 is cancelled because of Good Friday.

On Tuesday April 5, 2022 at 3pm ET, Wayne Aaron and David Soden of the Vedder Price law firm will discuss the SEC’s recent rule proposal on “Short Position and Short Activity Reporting by Institutional Investment Managers”. Under the rule proposal, any firm buying or selling for its own account or exercising investment discretion with respect to the account of any other person and exceeding a specified reporting threshold would be required to report on a monthly basis specified short position and short activity data for equity securities. The rule proposal also proposes a new “buy to cover” order marking requirement, and proposes amendments to the CAT NMS Plan to require the reporting of “buy to cover” order marking information and reliance on the bona fide market making exception in the SEC’s short sale rules. FIF has invited the members of the FIF Short Sales/Reg SHO/Short Interest Reporting Working Group, the Compliance Working Group and the Front Office Committee to participate on this call. If you are not a member of any of these groups and would like to attend this presentation, please send a note to fifinfo@fif.com.    

The FIF Short Sales/Reg SHO/Short Interest Reporting Working Group will meet on Thursday April 7, 2022 at 11am ET to continue its review of a draft comment letter on the SEC’s recent proposal to mandate a new buy to cover order marker. The Working Group also will discuss other issues identified by FIF members relating to the SEC’s recent rule proposal on Short Position and Short Activity Reporting by Institutional Investment Managers.

On March 29, FIF held a webinar on the Market Data Infrastructure Rule. Tom Jordan, FIF Advisory Chair, moderated a panel of industry experts that included Adrian Griffiths of MEMX, Manisha Kimmel of MayStreet and Chris Nielsen of Charles Schwab. The webinar included discussions on the February 24 SEC response to the participant’s November 5 filing, additional comment letters submitted to the SEC, and thoughts on the way forward. The panel also discussed the Plan Governance and lawsuits status. If you were not able to attend this webinar and would like to watch the recording, you may request access at fifinfo@fif.com 

The CAT Monthly Update Working Group will meet on Thursday April 7 at 2pm ET to review guidance and updates from the SROs and FINRA CAT on CAT transaction reporting and CAT CAIS reporting during the prior month. The Working Group also will review the current areas of focus for FIF members and the current open issues for CAT transaction reporting and CAT CAIS reporting.