SEC Ensures Best Stock Prices Stay Visible, Yada Yada
Published Date: 3/4/2026
Notice
Summary
The SEC is asking to keep collecting info under Rule 602, which helps show the best stock prices and sizes to the public. This affects 30 big stock groups and market makers who share their best bids and offers. No new costs or changes are planned, and the extension keeps things running smoothly without extra paperwork headaches.
Analyzed Economic Effects
2 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
Exchanges Must Publish Best Quotes
Under Rule 602(a) of Regulation NMS, national securities exchanges and the national securities association must provide quotation vendors with the best bid, best offer, and aggregate quotation size for each “subject security” so that those quotations can be publicly disseminated. The SEC says 29 national securities exchanges and one national securities association (30 respondents) will respond about 1,543,667,886,538 times per year at 16.20 microseconds per response, resulting in an estimated 208,410 hours of annual burden, and that the information collected is made available to the public.
Market Makers' Reporting Obligation Clarified
Rule 602(b) requires any exchange member and over-the-counter (OTC) market maker that is a “responsible broker or dealer” to communicate their best bids, best offers, and quotation sizes to an exchange or association. The Commission anticipates that no respondents will have a reporting burden under Rule 602(b); it also notes that electronic communications networks (ECNs) may report on behalf of market makers under Rule 602(b)(5), and because that ECN reporting is directed to nine or fewer persons it is not subject to Paperwork Reduction Act review.
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