FIF will be hosting two webinars on best execution across asset classes. The first webinar, on Monday, September 27 from 4-5pm ET, will focus on best execution for equities and options. The second webinar, on Tuesday, September 28 from 4-5pm ET, will focus on best execution for fixed income and cryptocurrency. Participants on the first panel include Wayne Aaron of the Vedder Price law firm, Brent Arnold of TD Ameritrade, Craig Murray and Nate Pomeroy of Wolverine, Ben Calev of BXS, and Peter Weiler of Abel Noser. Participants on the second panel include Constantinos Antoniades, adviser to...

On October 12, 2021, Peter Chan and Valerie Mirko of the Baker McKenzie law firm will discuss the recent SEC fines against firms for failure to protect personally identifiable information (PII) of customers. This will be a spotlight presentation during the October Cybersecurity Working Group call. The invite for this presentation has been sent to all members of the FIF Cybersecurity Working Group and the newly-created FIF Compliance Working Group. If you are interested in participating on this call and do not have the invite in your calendar, please update your profile and add yourself to...

FIF is creating a new Compliance Working Group. To sign up for this new working group, update your profile here.

On Wednesday, September 29 at 10am ET, Cboe's Angelo Evangelou will discuss the recent paper by Cboe titled “Cboe Advocates for Targeted Equity Market Structure Reform”.

The SEC staff have advised FIF that the SEC is considering the expansion of Rule 605 to cover options. The SEC staff have requested input from FIF on this topic. The FIF Rule 605 Working Group is working on a set of recommendations relating to Rule 605 for options. The next meeting for this Working Group is scheduled for Tuesday, September 28 at 2pm ET.

On September 22, 2021, members of the FIF Rule 606 Working Group met with SEC Commissioner Roisman and his advisers to discuss the challenges with Rule 606 look-though for options. FIF will be meeting with the SEC Trading and Markets Staff on September 30, 2021 to continue this discussion.

FIF Short Sales/Reg SHO/Short Interest Reporting. The FIF Short Sales/Reg SHO/Short Interest Reporting Working Group reviewed and made final edits to the draft FIF comment letter on FINRA Regulatory Notice 21-19, “FINRA Requests Comment on Short Interest Position Reporting Enhancements and Other Changes Related to Short Sale Reporting”. FIF will submit this comment letter on September 29, 2021. The Working Group also discussed draft requests for interpretive guidance relating to Short Interest Reporting for error scenarios. The Working Group also discussed Reg SHO compliance when firms...

LeveL ATS, an independently operated US equity dark pool trading venue for the sell-side and Luminex Trading & Analytics, a block trading venue built for and owned by the buy-side, have announced a definitive agreement to merge. According to a story in Traders Magazine, the deal is expected to be completed in Q1 2022. Through the merger, LeveL ATS and Luminex will operate as two separate alternative trading systems (ATS) under one broker-dealer. Founded in 2006 by a consortium of banks, LeveL ATS empowers clients to trade on a new level by delivering a suite of products ranging from a...

Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, and Citi announced a strategic initiative to re-imagine how data flows across financial services transactions to provide a frictionless solution for post-trade processes across the industry. The partnership brings together Snowflake’s secure data sharing and multi-party permissioning capabilities and Citi’s market expertise with the proprietary custody network spanning over 60 markets and its top global markets franchise in Snowflake’s Data Cloud provider-agnostic cloud environment. According to a story in MarketsMedia news, banking, insurance, fintech,...