The FIF Rule 606 Working Group will meet on Tuesday, February 8 at 2pm ET to discuss a draft interchange report to facilitate Rule 606(a) options look-through reporting, Rule 606 reporting for cash value orders that involve fractional shares, and the FINRA proposal to require reporting for routes in OTC equities. The Working Group also will review a recent filing by the SEC with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that estimates the annual costs to the industry for Rule 606 compliance.

The FIF TRACE Working Group will meet on Thursday, February 10 at 2pm ET to continue its discussion of the rule adopted by the Federal Reserve Board to expand TRACE reporting for Treasury and agency securities to certain depository institutions that are not broker-dealers. The Working Group will continue its review of draft FIF member questions to FINRA relating to implementation of the new reporting requirements.

On Thursday, February 10 at 3 pm, Steven Lofchie and Nihal Patel of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP will present on the SEC’s recent approval of a FINRA rule filing relating to margin requirements for covered agency transactions. They will also review a recently approved FINRA rulemaking to apply FINRA rules (including margin) to security-based swaps entered into by broker-dealers as principal or agent. They will also discuss the status of other developments relating to margin requirements for broker-dealers. The invite for this presentation has been sent to the members of the FIF...

On Tuesday, February 15 at 2 pm, Ignacio Sandoval and Kyle Whitehead of the Morgan Lewis law firm will present on the SEC’s recently-proposed amendments to Regulations ATS and Regulation SCI. The amendments propose to apply Regulation ATS and Regulation SCI to ATSs that trade Treasury and agency securities and repos on those securities. The amendments also propose to expand the ATS definition to include RFQ and other trading systems. The invite for this presentation has been sent to the members of the FIF ATS, Compliance and TRACE/Fixed Income Working Groups and the FIF Front Office and...

FIF TRACE Working Group. The FIF TRACE Working Group discussed the rule adopted by the Federal Reserve Board to expand TRACE reporting for Treasury and Agency securities to certain depository institutions that are not broker-dealers, including a review of draft FIF member questions to FINRA relating to implementation of the new reporting requirements. CAT Monthly Update Working Group. The CAT Monthly Update Working Group discussed the FINRA CAT February 2 webinar on CAT processing and ongoing challenges with delayed feedback. The CAT Monthly Update Working Group reviewed guidance and...

Liquidnet announced further electronification in the new issuance process for corporate bonds by unveiling a new feature that enables investors to communicate with syndicate banks directly from their Order and Execution Management System (O/EMS) as part of the book build process, before a bond is priced and allocated. This feature builds on the Liquidnet Primary Markets functionality launched in September last year, which enables bonds to be set up in the O/EMS in the very early stages of the syndication process using a pre-ISIN, early identifier. The workflow is now further enhanced with...

Cboe Global Markets, Inc announced it plans to launch trading in Nanos by Cboe beginning Monday, March 14, subject to regulatory approvals. At a fraction of the size of a standard options contract, Nanos is a one-multiplier, cash-settled listed options contract that will help provide greater access to options trading. The new contracts will be listed exclusively on the Cboe Options Exchange. Nanos will be available to trade based on the value of the S&P 500 Index1, providing investors with a simple and cost-effective way to gain broad exposure to the U.S. equity market and execute...

Quantitative trading firm Susquehanna’s digital assets subsidiary has joined TP ICAP’s Digital Asset Platform as a market maker. The firm will provide liquidity for the platform, which will feature a wholesale electronic over the counter (OTC) marketplace for spot crypto asset trading including in Bitcoin and Ethereum. TP ICAP’s platform will also offer post-trade infrastructure to enable straight through processing (STP). It has gained the support of several market makers already in preparation for its launch into its market maker role as it awaits registration by the UK’s Financial...

Over the past few years, there has been a quiet transformation in Fixed Income sales and trading. Regulatory and commercial drivers have ushered in a new era of digitization and automation, which has been supported and enabled by technological developments such as cloud and AI/ML. It’s no surprise then, that respondents’ priorities for 2022, in terms of their Fixed Income desk and portfolio strategies, reflect a clear continuation and evolution of Fixed Income trends. Reducing operational costs, investing in new electronic trading platforms and other technologies, and improving the...