Big Banks Top Share Data in New Finra Dark-Pool Data Disclosures -- 2nd Update

By Bradley Hope and Michael Calia 

Major banks had the largest amounts of trades and shares in alternative trading systems, according to a first-time data release of weekly data required under new disclosure requirements from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Finra said UBSA UBS Securities LLC had the most total trades, at about 2.3 million. MLIX Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. and CROS Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC followed with nearly 2.2 million total trades each. LATS Barclays Capital Inc. had about 1.7 million total trades.

Under a new rule intended to make these trading venues less opaque, banks operating the lightly regulated dark pools are now required to report market data on a weekly basis to Finra, Wall Street's industry financed regulator. Finra in turn publishes some of the data to its website.

Information that must be reported under the rule includes total shares traded and total trading volume on each of the roughly 40 dark pools, also referred to alternative trading systems.

Finra said CROS Credit Suisse Securities (USA) was highest in total number of shares traded with 373.6 million. Next were LATS Barclays Capital Inc. with 305.5 million and UBSA UBS Securities LLC with 278.2 million.

Bank of America's MLIX Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith had a total share count of 213.9 million.

The bank earlier reported a total that was twice as high, with a spokesman for the bank saying it had submitted incorrect trading data to regulators during the initial round of dark-pool data collection.

In January, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the new Finra rule requiring each alternative trading system, or ATS, to report weekly trading data.

The ATS reporting requirement was implemented beginning May 12, 2014.

The first ATS reports, for the week of May 12 through May 16, were due by May 28.

The data are aggregated on a weekly basis, the agency said on its website.

Write to Bradley Hope at [e-mail] and Michael Calia at [e-mail]

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