Finra Retooling Market Surveillance to Catch Abuses

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is revamping how it scans for abuses such as insider trading, responding to increased fragmentation of markets, Chief Executive Officer Richard Ketchum said today.

Finra conducts market surveillance for most stock exchanges, reflecting 80 percent of U.S. trading, after adding NYSE Euronext’s markets to its oversight responsibilities in June. While the regulator currently operates separate databases for trading-related information for securities listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market, the goal is to “pull that together” in 2011 to spot manipulative and illegal activity across venues, Ketchum told reporters in New York.