(Bloomberg) — The Financial Conduct Authority, the UK’s markets regulator, plans to publish a daily summary of trading in the country’s shares starting Friday, part of its effort to increase transparency, according to people familiar with the matter.
The regulator will also release a year’s worth of backward-looking data that will help investors gauge the volume of trading in UK stocks, the people said, asking not to be named because the information is private.
The daily update will act as an interim step ahead of a complete consolidated tape for equities, a single feed of trading data for stocks. The FCA will also set out the scope of the feed on Friday, which is likely to include data from before trades take place as well as after, the people said. Whether pre-trade data will be included in the consolidated tape has been the subject of debate in the City of London over the past few months.
While there is broad agreement around the supply of data after trades have been executed, known as a “post-trade tape,” the debate about a potential “pre-trade tape” centered on whether banks should disclose pricing data.
LSE Chief Executive Officer Julia Hoggett wrote an opinion piece on the company’s website last month, lobbying the FCA to tread carefully and laying out the exchange’s conditions for including pre-trade data. She also threatened to ask the government to get involved.
“If the FCA is not prepared to proceed with caution and protect market integrity, it may be essential to ask the Government to step in instead,” Hoggett wrote.
She set out four conditions that should be part of the plan, including that all price-forming venues contribute and that the process is operationally resilient. She said it should also prevent high-frequency traders from front-running the tape — referencing Michael Lewis’ book Flash Boys — and added that it should include revenue sharing to compensate venues for generating price-forming data.
A representative for the FCA declined to comment.
The plan is part of efforts to increase transparency in the UK’s equity markets, stem the flow of companies leaving the exchange and encourage more listings. Europe’s own version is set to go live in September.
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