FCA to publish daily UK equity trading summaries

The Financial Conduct Authority will begin publishing daily summaries of trading in UK-listed equities from Friday and will release a year of historical trading data to give market participants clearer information on trading volumes and activity across UK stocks.

The FCA plans to publish the daily reports alongside details of the proposed scope of a consolidated tape, including whether the service would carry pre-trade quote data as well as post-trade transaction data.

There is broad industry support for a post-trade tape that reports completed transactions. The inclusion of pre-trade data is disputed by banks, exchanges and trading venues, which say that displaying live pricing and quotes could affect market quality, liquidity and competition.

Hedge funds and other institutional investors that use trading data are expected to use the new daily summaries and the historical dataset to analyse market flows while the regulator finalises the tape design.

Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange Group, urged the regulator to proceed cautiously. She called for any pre-trade tape to include all price-forming trading venues, to include safeguards against market abuse such as front-running by high-frequency traders, and to provide a mechanism to compensate venues that generate market data.

The FCA has not provided further details on the tape’s design or timing beyond the announcement of the daily summaries and the year of historical data. Market participants will monitor whether the tape’s scope will require coverage of lit exchanges, dark pools and other venues that contribute to price formation.

A consolidated tape would aggregate trade and potentially quote data from multiple platforms into a single feed. Supporters say a tape can reduce fragmentation of price information; critics say revealing live price formation could change trading incentives and affect revenues linked to market data. The regulator will consult on the proposed service before setting its next steps.