- Phillies win thriller to level Mets series
- Yu bags first PGA Tour win with playoff win
- PSG held by Nice to leave Monaco clear at top of Ligue 1
- Lewandowski treble for leaders Barca as Atletico held
- Fresh Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Sucic stunner earns Real Sociedad draw against Atletico
- PSG draw with Nice, fail to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1
- Gudmundsson downs AC Milan after De Gea's penalty heroics for Fiorentina
- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
US regulator favors revamp of stock market trading system
Citing equity market trading defects revealed in last year's GameStop saga, a top US securities regulator on Wednesday endorsed a broad revamp of the stock market trading system.
In a speech billed as a first step towards a possible update in the rules likely to rile financial firms, Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said he favored restructuring the system in order to better protect retail investors.
"It's not clear... that our current national market system is as fair and competitive as possible for investors," Gensler said in a virtual address at a conference hosted by Piper Sandler.
The speech marks the SEC's latest action in response to frenzied trading in early 2021 during which extreme volatility in GameStop, AMC Entertainment and a handful of other equities rocked the market and led brokerages to implement sudden trading restrictions that angered investors and spurred congressional probes.
Gensler said the current system routes "the vast majority" of stock trades orders to electronic trading wholesalers such as Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial.
In some cases, these firms pay the brokerages, an arrangement known as "payment for order flow" that can allow brokerages such as Robinhood Markets to offer commission-free trades to individual investors.
But Gensler is skeptical that this arrangement protects retail investors and believes the payment for order flow system creates conflicts of interests and encourages "gamification" on online platforms to increase trading volumes.
Gensler has asked SEC staff to consider steps to "enhance order-by-order competition," potentially through auctions. He has also asked staff for recommendations to mitigate the risks with payment for order flow and to provide more transparency.
The SEC head described the speech as a starting point towards possible regulation that will include extensive public comment and discussion with other SEC commissioners.
Doug Cifu, chief executive of Virtu, disputed Gensler's characterizations, telling CNBC that most of the broker dealers with which his firm trades do not accept payment for order flow.
"The chair with all due respect is conflating the issue of payment for order flow with the ecosystem that has evolved in this country for retail trading, which has really enabled retail investors to have instantaneous execution and essentially zero commission on 8000 listed names," Cifu said.
"You know, the cliche that markets have never been better is actually factually correct."
X.Matos--PC