(Finance) – “At this moment, there is no level playing field between the different parts of the market: wholesalers, dark pools and lit exchanges. It is not clear, with such market segmentation and concentration, and with uneven playing conditions, that our current national market system is as fair and competitive as possible for investors “. Gary Genslerhead of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with reference to the proposed reform of the way in which Wall Street manages execution of orders from retail investors.
The SEC, Consob’s US equivalent, is studying a series of new rules after last year’s stock craze meme, when many raised doubts that retail investors were getting the best price for their orders. In a speech at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange Conference, Gensler also presented some numbers in support of his thesis. “In 2009, the over-the-counter trading accounted for a quarter of US stock volume, he said. Last year, during meme stock mania, that share increased to a peak of 47%. Additionally, over 90% of retail tradable orders are routed to a small concentrated group of wholesalers who pay for this retail market order flow. “
For these reasons, Gensler asked staff last year to “have one holistic and cross-market view of how we might update our rules and promote greater efficiency in our equity markets, particularly for retail investors. “The SEC is working on six issues: minimum price increase; best offer; disclosure of order execution quality; best execution; order competition -by-order; payment for order flow and related access fees.