NYSE Corporate Actions Feed and Exchange Derived Data Policies
Summary
SIFMA provided comments to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to notify them of a New York Stock Exchange LLC (“NYSE”) Corporate Actions market data feed and related fees that we believe should be filed with the Commission.
We also want to notify the Commission of a problematic practice undertaken by NYSE and other exchanges that requires market participants to consent to an exchange licensing interest in derived market data under their respective derived data policies.
Excerpt
Vanessa Countryman
Secretary
Securities and Exchange Commission
100 F Street NE., Washington, DC 20549
Re: File No. 4-729; NYSE Corporate Actions Feed and Exchange Derived Data Policies
Dear Ms. Countryman:
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (“SIFMA”)1 respectfully submits this letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) to notify the Commission of a New York Stock Exchange LLC (“NYSE”) Corporate Actions market data feed and related fees that we believe should be filed with the Commission. We also want to notify the Commission of a problematic practice undertaken by NYSE and other exchanges that requires market participants to consent to an exchange licensing interest in derived market data under their respective derived data policies.
NYSE drastically increased the cost of the Corporate Actions market data feed in early 2019, but failed to submit a rule filing to change the fees. Subscribers of the NYSE Corporate Actions feed were being charged a monthly access fee of $1,000 and an internal use fee of $1,500 – approximately $2,500 per month for use of the feed. In January 2019, NYSE established a new monthly fee of up to $30,000 per month for using the feed for multiple external uses. In addition to increasing the cost to each applicable market participant by up to $360,000 per year, NYSE told the data recipients to sign the new updated licensing agreement with novel contract terms by a certain date near the end of 2019 or be cut-off from receiving the feed. SIFMA initially raised these concerns with NYSE in 2019 but to no avail. SIFMA believes that NYSE should have submitted a rule filing for its Corporate Actions market data feed and related fees to allow interested parties the opportunity to submit comments on the proposed rule change and allow the Commission to review the rule filing to ensure the fees meet the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”).