The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced a roundtable to be held on April 23, 2018 to address the market structure for exchange traded thinly listed equity securities as well as exchange-traded products. Speaking at a conference in Chicago, the Director of the Division of Trading and Markets had noted that, for NMS stocks of all types, one-half have an average daily trading volume of less than 100,000 shares. Of the approximately 4,656 corporate stocks currently listed on U.S. exchanges, 1301 have daily trading volume of fewer than 100,000 shares. These thinly-traded common stocks represent 14.9% of all NMS stocks, but only 0.7% of all NMS trading volume. The roundtable will focus on potential improvements that may be considered for thinly traded securities in order to “optimize” the market structure. The roundtable is open to the public. With the Tick Size pilot coming to an end in October, it will be interesting to see whether a new pilot will be approved.
