Regulation NMS is a regulation

Regulation

Regulation is administrative legislation that constitutes or constrains rights and allocates responsibilities. It can be distinguished from primary legislation on the one hand and judge-made law on the other...

 promulgated and described by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission

United States Securities and Exchange Commission

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is a federal agency which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets in the United States...

 (SEC) as "a series of initiatives designed to modernize and strengthen the national market system for equity securities." It was established in 2007. It seeks to foster both "competition among individual markets and competition among individual orders" in order to promote efficient and fair price formation across securities markets. In 1972, before the SEC began its pursuit of a national market system, the market for securities was quite fragmented. The same stock sometimes traded at different prices at different trading venues, and the NYSE ticker tape did not report transactions in NYSE-listed stocks that took place on regional exchanges or on other over-the-counter securities markets. This fragmentation made it difficult for traders to comparison shop. In 1975, Congress authorized the SEC to facilitate a national market system.

Formation of Reg NMS

In 2005, the rules promoting the national market system were consolidated into REG NMS. Some of the more notable rules include:

1. Order Protection (or Trade Through) Rule - provides intermarket price priority for quotations that are immediately and automatically accessible (Rule 611)
2. Access Rule - addresses access to market data such as quotations (Rule 610)
3. Sub-Penny Rule - establishes minimum pricing increments (Rule 612)
4. Market Data Rules: a) Allocation amendment – institutes a new Market Data Revenue Allocation Formula, b) Governance amendment – creates advisory committees, c) Distribution and Display Rules – governing market data (Rule 600, 601 & 603).

Discussion

The order protection rule has been controversial because it requires traders to transact on a trading venue at the lowest price rather than on a venue offering the quickest execution or the most reliability. Thus, some have described it as an improper government intervention into private business affairs. Defenders of the rule argue that it really just requires what brokers should be doing if they are acting in their customer's best interests. Still others have argued that the rule is too lax because it only protects the quotes at the top of the book. For example, if the best two quotes in one market are superior to the best quote in another market, a portion of an incoming market order may still trade at the inferior market at the inferior price even though the second best quote on the superior market is still available. If more than just the top of the book (the best quote) were protected by the order rule, the market order would have transacted at a superior price and the limit order offering the superior price would have transacted more quickly.

Firms Affected

• SROs/Exchanges
• ECNs and other executing broker-dealers (e.g., market makers, block positioners)
• Broker-dealers routing ISOs

See also

• MiFID (Analogue of Reg NMS in Europe)
• National Market System
  National Market System
  The National Market System is the national system for trading equities in the United States....
  
  

External links

• SEC Release Regarding the Proposed Rule
• Reg NMS - Securities Lawyer's Deskbook by The University of Cincinnati College of Law