Fixed Income Market Structure Advisory Committee — Transparency Subcommittee

Summary Minutes of March 20, 2018 Call

The Transparency Subcommittee held a call on March 20, 2018 to discuss a potential pilot program on the impact of transparency rules on block trading in the corporate bond market.

The call convened at approximately 5:30 p.m. via telephone. The following Subcommittee Members were on the call:

Brian Archer
John Bagley
Gilbert Garcia
Tom Gira
Scott Krohn
Suzanne Shank
Kumar Venkataraman
Elisse Walter
Mihir Worah
Michael Heaney
Brett Redfearn

The following staff from the Division of Trading and Markets were on the call:

David Shillman
David Dimitrious
Tom Eady
Michael Gaw
Patrick Norton
Justin Pica
Heidi Pilpel
Ben Bernstein
Ted Uliassi

The following staff from the Office of Municipal Securities were also on the call:

Ahmed Abonamah
William Miller

The following staff from the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis were also on the call:

Hans Heidle
Abby Kim
Diana Knyazeva
Michael Schihl

The subcommittee discussed the pros and cons of various design alternatives for a potential pilot study on the impact of trade reporting on corporate bond block trading. A majority of the subcommittee voted to further pursue a pilot study that would, for a fixed period, delay reporting and raise the dissemination caps for block trades across all corporate bond issues. The purpose of the pilot study would be to determine whether these changes in the reporting rules cause any changes in liquidity or other market characteristics in corporate bond block trades. The subcommittee determined that a strawman of the pilot study’s parameters would be circulated prior to the next subcommittee meeting to facilitate a more detailed discussion of the pilot study. The subcommittee also decided to reach out to additional municipal securities market participants to determine whether a similar pilot study on block trading in municipal securities might be worthwhile.

The call concluded at approximately 6:45 p.m.