The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is set to begin publishing a daily summary of trading activity in UK-listed equities, marking the latest step in its efforts to improve market transparency ahead of the introduction of a consolidated tape, according to a report Bloomberg.
The new daily publication, expected to begin on Friday, will be accompanied by the release of a year’s worth of historical trading data, providing market participants with greater insight into trading volumes across UK equities.
For hedge funds and other institutional investors, the additional data should offer a more comprehensive view of market activity while the regulator continues work on a consolidated tape – a single data feed designed to bring together information from multiple trading venues.
Alongside the daily reports, the FCA is expected to outline the proposed scope of the consolidated tape. Industry attention has focused on whether the service will include both pre-trade and post-trade data.
While there is broad support for a post-trade tape that publishes completed transactions, the inclusion of pre-trade information has proved more contentious. Banks, exchanges and trading venues have debated whether displaying live pricing data could affect market quality, liquidity and competition.
The issue has drawn strong views from the London Stock Exchange Group. Chief executive Julia Hoggett recently urged the regulator to proceed cautiously, arguing that any pre-trade tape should include all price-forming trading venues, incorporate safeguards against market abuse such as front-running by high-frequency traders, and include a mechanism to compensate exchanges and venues that generate market data.
The FCA has reportedly not publicly commented on the plans.
