February 8, 2023

By Electronic Submission

Vanessa Countryman
Secretary
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
100 F Street, N.E.
Washington DC 20549

File No. S7-32-22; Release No. 34-96496; Regulation Best Execution
File No. S7-31-22; Release No. 34-96495; Order Competition Rule
File No. S7-30-22; Release No. 34-96494; Regulation NMS: Minimum Pricing Increments, Access Fees, and Transparency of Better Priced Orders
File No. S7-29-22; Release No. 34-96493; Disclosure of Order Execution Information

Dear Ms. Countryman:

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (“SIFMA”) submits this letter to request that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) extend the time period for the solicitation of comments on the four above-referenced rule proposals (the “Proposals”).1 Introduced together on December 14, 2022, the Proposals collectively represent fundamental changes to equity market structure that in many ways are more far-reaching than the adoption of Regulation NMS itself. However, the Commission has provided almost no analysis as to how the Proposals relate to, or would operate with, each other and the anticipated cumulative effects if more than one Proposal is adopted.

It has therefore been left entirely to public commenters to determine and evaluate how the Proposals could interact and the impact they would have on markets and market participants. This task has been further hindered by the unavailability of most of the data upon which the Commission relied in making the Proposals. In particular, the Commission extensively uses Consolidated Audit Trail (“CAT”) data to support components of the Proposals, but this data is not publicly available.2 To aid in SIFMA’s and the public’s evaluation of the Proposals, concurrent with the submission of this comment letter, SIFMA is submitting a request under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) that the data relied upon by the Commission in formulating the Proposals be made public.3 In lieu of responding to the FOIA request, SIFMA urges the Commission to voluntarily release to the public the requested data and information described in the FOIA request (and in the same manner, i.e., without any personally identifiable or attributable information) to facilitate even broader public review of the relevant data.

 

1 Exchange Act Release No. 96496, 88 FR 5440 (Jan. 27, 2023) (“Regulation Best Execution”); Exchange Act Release No. 96495, 88 FR 128 (Jan. 3, 2023) (“Order Competition Rule”); Exchange Act Release No. 96494, 87 FR 80266 (Dec. 29, 2022) (“Minimum Pricing Increments”); Exchange Act Release No. 96493, 88 FR 3786 (Jan. 20, 2023) (“Order Execution Information”).