Last week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted amendments to certain rules under Regulation NMS to amend minimum pricing increments and access fee caps, as well as rules to enhance the transparency of better priced orders.
The additional minimum pricing increment or ‘tick size’ will apply to the quoting of certain NMS stocks, while the reduction in access fee caps will be linked to protected quotations of trading centres.
In addition, the new rules seek to increase the transparency of exchange fees and rebates and accelerate the implementation of rules that will make information about the market’s best priced, smaller-sized orders publicly available.
According to the watchdog, the changes have been designed with a mind to reduce transaction costs and improve market quality for all investors and to help ensure that orders placed in the national market system reflect the best prices available for all investors.
“A lot has changed – in technology and business models – since we last took a comprehensive review of the national market system rules in 2005. Thus, it is incumbent upon us to update our national market system rules,” said Gary Gensler, SEC chair.
“The reforms we adopted will help promote greater transparency, competition, fairness, and efficiency in our $55 trillion equity markets. That goes to the heart of the SEC’s mission. The reforms are pro-investors. They are pro-capital formation.”
Read more: The SEC’s equities overhaul: Necessary plumbing changes or a liquidity drain?
Tick sizes
Trading volume related to NMS stocks have experienced a marked increase since the adoption of Rule 612 of Regulation NMS in 2005, however, they have been constrained by the minimum pricing increments under the rule.
“The tick size proposal, in name only, is simple and one-dimensional, but in practice, there are changes to rebates, there are changes to pricing tiers, there are changes to odd lot data that’s being disseminated,” Eric Stockland, managing director, electronic trading for BMO Capital Markets, told The TRADE in August last year.
“This is like a big plumbing change and it’s going to impact institutions directly and affect what algos they use, what their implementation costs are, and just the way that stocks are even quoted and traded.”
Various NMS stocks could potentially be priced more competitively if not constrained by the market-wide minimum pricing increment of $0.01.
The adopted amendments to Rule 612 establish a new, additional $0.005 minimum pricing increment for quotations and orders in NMS stocks that are priced at, or greater than, $1.00 per share.
“The tick size for all NMS stocks will be based on the time weighted average quoted spread for the relevant NMS stock during a specified three-month evaluation period and thereafter assigned for a six-month period,” the SEC confirmed in a statement.
Access fees
The SEC has also adopted amendments to address distortions associated with access fees and rebates under the existing access fee caps, potential conflicts of interest, and increase the transparency of exchange fees, rebates, and other forms of remuneration.
The new rules reduce the access fee caps for protected quotations in NMS stocks that are priced $1.00 or more to $0.001 per share.
The SEC added that for protected quotations in NMS stocks priced less than $1.00 per share, the access fee cap will be 0.1 percent of the quotation price per share.
In addition, Rule 610 will now require exchanges to make the amounts of all fees, rebates, and other forms of remuneration determinable at the time of execution.”
Elsewhere, in a bid to bolster information about the best prices for smaller-sized orders, the SEC has accelerated the implementation of previously adopted definitions related to round lots and odd-lot information.
Definitions for this were approved in 2020 by the SEC, however, their implementation has been delayed.
The SEC has also adopted an amendment to the odd-lot information definition to require the identification of the best priced odd-lot orders that are available in the market.
The amendments will become effective 60 days after the publication of the adopting release in the Federal Register.
For Rule 612, Rule 610, and the round lot definition, compliance will begin on the first business day of November 2025. For odd-lot information, the compliance date will be the first business day of May 2026.
“These changes are about improving competition and efficiency in the market. We can debate the details and talk about the nuance, but ultimately, institutions benefit from a more efficient market,” added Stockland when speaking to The TRADE last year.