SEC Proposes Rules to Amend Minimum Pricing Increments and Access Fee Caps and to Enhance the Transparency of Better Priced Orders

The Securities and Exchange Commission today proposed to amend certain rules under Regulation NMS to adopt variable minimum pricing increments, or “tick sizes,” for the quoting and trading of NMS stocks, reduce access fee caps for protected quotations, and accelerate the transparency of the best priced orders available in the market. The proposed amendments are designed to enhance trading opportunities for all investors and to help ensure that orders placed in the national market system reflect the best prices available for all investors. “A large and growing amount of equity trading now goes into what many call the dark markets, particularly off-exchange market centers such as wholesalers and dark pools. Such off-exchange market centers, though, benefit from transacting using a different set of rules from the ones on national securities exchanges.