Self-Regulatory Organizations; NYSE Arca, Inc.; Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of Proposed Rule Change To Establish Fees for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed, 2331-2335 [2012-686]

Download as PDF Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 10 / Tuesday, January 17, 2012 / Notices of filing.10 However, Rule 19b– 4(f)(6)(iii) 11 permits the Commission to designate a shorter time if such action is consistent with the protection of investors and the public interest. The Exchange has requested that the Commission waive the 30-day operative delay. The Exchange notes that waiver of this requirement will permit the Exchange to immediately remove language from its rules that could otherwise create confusion for Members because the 7 a.m. ET start time has not been implemented.12 The Commission believes that waiving the 30-day operative delay is consistent with the protection of investors and the public interest because such waiver would allow the Exchange to notify its Members by January 1, 2012 as prescribed in the August 25 Rule Filing and would immediately provide certainty with respect to the Exchange’s rules regarding the start time for the PreOpening Session. For this reason, the Commission designates the proposed rule change to be operative upon filing with the Commission.13 At any time within 60 days of the filing of the proposed rule change, the Commission summarily may temporarily suspend such rule change if it appears to the Commission that such action is necessary or appropriate in the public interest, for the protection of investors, or otherwise in furtherance of the purposes of the Act. IV. Solicitation of Comments Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views, and arguments concerning the foregoing, including whether the proposed rule change is consistent with the Act. Comments may be submitted by any of the following methods: Electronic Comments srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES • Use the Commission’s Internet comment form (https://www.sec.gov/ rules/sro.shtml); or 10 17 CFR 240.19b–4(f)(6)(iii). In addition, Rule 19b–4(f)(6) requires a self-regulatory organization to give the Commission written notice of its intent to file the proposed rule change at least five business days prior to the date of filing of the proposed rule change, or such shorter time as designated by the Commission. The Exchange has satisfied this requirement. 11 Id. 12 See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 65196 (August 25, 2011), 76 FR 54267 (August 31, 2011) (SR–EDGA–2011–28), stating the Exchange will provide notice to Members in an information circular when the proposed rule change will be effective, which will be no later than January 1, 2012. 13 For the purposes only of waiving the 30-day operative delay, the Commission has considered the proposed rule’s impact on efficiency, competition, and capital formation. See 15 U.S.C. 78c(f). VerDate Mar<15>2010 16:12 Jan 13, 2012 Jkt 226001 • Send an email to rule-comments@ sec.gov. Please include File Number SR– EDGA–2011–41 on the subject line. 2331 SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Paper Comments [Release No. 34–66128; File No. SR– NYSEArca–2011–96] • Send paper comments in triplicate to Elizabeth M. Murphy, Secretary, Securities and Exchange Commission, 100 F Street NE., Washington, DC 20549–1090. Self-Regulatory Organizations; NYSE Arca, Inc.; Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of Proposed Rule Change To Establish Fees for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed All submissions should refer to File Number SR–EDGA–2011–41. This file number should be included on the subject line if email is used. To help the Commission process and review your comments more efficiently, please use only one method. The Commission will post all comments on the Commission’s Internet Web site (https://www.sec.gov/ rules/sro.shtml). Copies of the submission, all subsequent amendments, all written statements with respect to the proposed rule change that are filed with the Commission, and all written communications relating to the proposed rule change between the Commission and any person, other than those that may be withheld from the public in accordance with the provisions of 5 U.S.C. 552, will be available for Web site viewing and printing in the Commission’s Public Reference Room, 100 F Street NE., Washington, DC 20549, on official business days between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Copies of the filing also will be available for inspection and copying at the principal office of the Exchange. All comments received will be posted without change; the Commission does not edit personal identifying information from submissions. You should submit only information that you wish to make available publicly. All submissions should refer to File Number SR–EDGA– 2011–41 and should be submitted on or before February 7, 2012. January 10, 2012. For the Commission, by the Division of Trading and Markets, pursuant to delegated authority.14 Kevin M. O’Neill, Deputy Secretary. [FR Doc. 2012–684 Filed 1–13–12; 8:45 am] Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (‘‘Act’’) 1 and Rule 19b–4 thereunder,2 notice is hereby given that, on December 28, 2011, NYSE Arca, Inc. (the ‘‘Exchange’’ or ‘‘NYSE Arca’’) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (‘‘Commission’’) the proposed rule change as described in Items I, II, and III below, which Items have been prepared by the Exchange. The Commission is publishing this notice to solicit comments on the proposed rule change from interested persons. I. Self-Regulatory Organization’s Statement of the Terms of Substance of the Proposed Rule Change The Exchange proposes to establish fees for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed. The text of the proposed rule change is available at the Exchange, the Commission’s Public Reference Room, and www.nyse.com. II. Self-Regulatory Organization’s Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change In its filing with the Commission, the self-regulatory organization included statements concerning the purpose of, and basis for, the proposed rule change and discussed any comments it received on the proposed rule change. The text of those statements may be examined at the places specified in Item IV below. The Exchange has prepared summaries, set forth in sections A, B, and C below, of the most significant parts of such statements. A. Self-Regulatory Organization’s Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change 1. Purpose The Exchange proposes to establish fees for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed.3 It is a market data product BILLING CODE 8011–01–P 1 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1). CFR 240.19b–4. 3 The proposed rule change establishing the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed was immediately 2 17 14 17 PO 00000 CFR 200.30–3(a)(12). Frm 00075 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 4703 Continued E:\FR\FM\17JAN1.SGM 17JAN1 2332 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 10 / Tuesday, January 17, 2012 / Notices offered to vendors and subscribers that combines three existing market data feeds as well as additional market data from the Exchange into one integrated product. The three existing products are NYSE Arca BBO, NYSE Arca Trades, and ArcaBook. In addition, the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed includes order imbalance information prior to the opening and closing of trading and security status information (i.e., delayed openings and trading halts). The order imbalance information included in the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed is available pursuant to NYSE Arca Equities Rule 7.35 4 and as part of the NYSE ArcaBook data feed product. Security status information is not Fee type currently available through any other NYSE Arca market data products.5 The NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed is available through the Exchange’s Liquidity Center Network (‘‘LCN’’) and the Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure (‘‘SFTI’’) network. The proposed fees for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed are as follows: 6 Monthly fee Direct Access Fee ............................................................................................................ $3,000 Redistribution Fee ............................................................................................................ 3,000 Description Applies to end users, market data vendors, and extranets. Additional fee applied to any end user, market data vendor, or extranet that redistributes the data feed. reliance upon the existence of competitive market mechanisms to set reasonable and equitably allocated fees for proprietary market data: The Exchange believes that the proposed rule change is consistent with the provisions of Section 6 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the ‘‘Act’’) 8 in general and with Section 6(b)(4) and 6(b)(5) of the Act 9 in particular in that it provides an equitable allocation of reasonable fees among users and recipients of the data and is not designed to permit unfair discrimination among customers, issuers, and brokers. The NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed fees are reasonable because they represent not only the value of the three existing data feeds but also the value of the additional market data included (i.e., order imbalance information and security status information) and the value of receiving the data on an integrated basis. Some vendors and subscribers may not have the technology or resources to integrate the separate data feeds in a timely and/ or efficient manner, and thus the integration feature of the product may be valuable to them. The redistribution fee also is reasonable because vendors receive value from redistributing the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed in their business products for their customers. Moreover, the fees are equitably allocated and not unfairly discriminatory because vendors and subscribers may choose to continue to receive the separate feeds at current prices or can choose to pay more for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed in order to receive additional and integrated data, thereby allowing the vendors and subscribers to choose the best business solution. The existence of alternatives to the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed, including real-time consolidated data, free delayed consolidated data, and proprietary data from other sources, as well as the continued availability of the Exchange’s separate data feeds, ensures that the Exchange cannot set unreasonable fees, or fees that are unreasonably discriminatory, when vendors and subscribers can elect such alternatives. The recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in NetCoalition v. SEC, No. 09–1042 (DC Cir. 2010), upheld the Commission’s NetCoalition at 15 (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 94–229 at 92 (1975), as reprinted in 1975 U.S.C.C.A.N. 321, 323). The court agreed with the Commission’s conclusion that ‘‘Congress intended that ‘competitive forces should dictate the services and practices that constitute the U.S. national market system for trading equity securities.’ ’’10 As explained below in the Exchange’s Statement on Burden on Competition, the Exchange believes that there is substantial evidence of competition in the marketplace for data and that the Commission can rely upon such evidence in concluding that the fees established in this filing are the product of competition and therefore satisfy the relevant statutory standards.11 As the NetCoalition decision noted, the Commission is not required to effective on October 26, 2011. See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 65669, (Nov. 2, 2011), 76 FR 69311 (Nov. 8, 2011) (SR–NYSEArca–2011–78). 4 See https://datasvr.tradearca.com/ arcadataserver/Auction.php. 5 Security status information is available for other NYSE markets. NYSE Alerts and NYSE Amex Alerts are real-time data feed information services from the NYSE and NYSE Amex that provide real-time messages regarding certain conditions related to the trading of NYSE- and NYSE Amex-traded securities, including security trading status data. 6 Customers are separately responsible for the appropriate ArcaBook professional and nonprofessional user fees and NYSE Arca Trades user fees. 7 NYSE Arca expects that data concerning quotations and transaction reports required to be disseminated under Rule 602 and 603 of Regulation NMS will be delivered from the Exchange’s matching engine to the Securities Information Processor, to the individual proprietary feeds described above, and to the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed at substantially the same time. The Commission notes that under Rule 603 NYSE Arca is required to distribute market data on terms that are fair and reasonable and not unreasonably discriminatory. See 17 CFR 242.603(a). In addition, the Commission notes that, ‘‘independently distributed data could not be made available on a more timely basis than core data is made available to a Network processor. Stated another way, * * * Rule 603(a) prohibits an SRO or broker-dealer from transmitting data to a vendor or user any sooner than it transmits the data to a Network processor.’’ Securities Exchange Act Release No. 51808 (June 9, 2005), 70 FR 37496 (June 29, 2005), at 37567. Accordingly, the Commission notes that it would be inconsistent with Rule 603 for NYSE Arca to transmit data to the individual proprietary feeds any sooner than it transmits data to the Securities Information Processor. 8 15 U.S.C. 78f(b). 9 15 U.S.C. 78f(b)(4) and (5). 10 NetCoalition at 16. 11 Section 916 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (‘‘Dodd-Frank Act’’) amended paragraph (A) of Section 19(b)(3) of the Act, 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(3), to make clear that all exchange fees for market data may be filed by exchanges on an immediately effective basis. The Exchange notes that the three existing data feed products (NYSE Arca BBO, NYSE Arca Trades, and ArcaBook) would continue to be available to vendors and subscribers separately at the same prices at which they are currently available.7 The monthly access fee for each of those feeds on a separate basis is $750. srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES 2. Statutory Basis VerDate Mar<15>2010 16:12 Jan 13, 2012 Jkt 226001 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 4703 In fact, the legislative history indicates that the Congress intended that the market system ‘evolve through the interplay of competitive forces as unnecessary regulatory restrictions are removed’ and that the SEC wield its regulatory power ‘in those situations where competition may not be sufficient,’ such as in the creation of a ‘consolidated transactional reporting system.’ E:\FR\FM\17JAN1.SGM 17JAN1 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 10 / Tuesday, January 17, 2012 / Notices undertake a cost-of-service or ratemaking approach, and the Exchange incorporates by reference into this proposed rule change its analysis of this topic in another recent rule filing.12 srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES B. Self-Regulatory Organization’s Statement on Burden on Competition The Exchange does not believe that the proposed rule change will impose any burden on competition that is not necessary or appropriate in furtherance of the purposes of the Act. An exchange’s ability to price its data feed products is constrained by (1) competition among exchanges and other trading platforms that compete with one another in a variety of dimensions, (2) the existence of inexpensive real-time consolidated data and free delayed consolidated data, and (3) the inherent contestability of the market for proprietary data. The market for proprietary data products is currently competitive and inherently contestable because there is fierce competition for the inputs necessary to the creation of proprietary data and strict pricing discipline for the proprietary products themselves. Numerous exchanges compete with each other for listings, trades, and market data itself, providing virtually limitless opportunities for entrepreneurs who wish to produce and distribute their own market data. This proprietary data is produced by each individual exchange, as well as other entities, in a vigorously competitive market. It is common for broker-dealers to further exploit this competition by sending their order flow and transaction reports to multiple markets, rather than providing them all to a single market. As a recent Commission Concept Release noted, the ‘‘current market structure can be described as dispersed and complex’’ with ‘‘trading volume * * * dispersed among many highly automated trading centers that compete for order flow in the same stocks’’ and ‘‘trading centers offer[ing] a wide range of services that are designed to attract different types of market participants with varying trading needs.’’ 13 Competitive markets for order flow, executions, and transaction reports provide pricing discipline for the inputs of proprietary data products and 12 See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 63291 (Nov. 9, 2010), 75 FR 70311 (Nov. 17, 2010) (SR– NYSEArca–2010–97). 13 Concept Release on Equity Market Structure, Securities Exchange Act Release No. 61358 (Jan. 14, 2010), 75 FR 3594 (Jan. 22, 2010) (File No. S7–02– 10). This Concept Release included data from the third quarter of 2009 showing that no market center traded more than 20% of the volume of listed stocks, further evidencing the dispersal of and competition for trading activity. Id. at 3598. VerDate Mar<15>2010 16:12 Jan 13, 2012 Jkt 226001 therefore constrain markets from overpricing proprietary market data. The U.S. Department of Justice recently acknowledged the aggressive competition among exchanges. In announcing the abandoned bid for NYSE Euronext by NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. and IntercontinentalExchange Inc., Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney stated that exchanges ‘‘compete head to head to offer real-time equity data products. These data products include the best bid and offer of every exchange and information on each equity trade, including the last sale.’’ 14 Transaction execution and proprietary data products are complementary in that market data is both an input and a byproduct of the execution service. In fact, market data and trade execution are a paradigmatic example of joint products with joint costs. The decision whether and on which platform to post an order will depend on the attributes of the platform where the order can be posted, including the execution fees, data quality, and price and distribution of its data products. Without trade executions, exchange data products cannot exist. Moreover, data products are valuable to many end users only insofar as they provide information that end users expect will assist them or their customers in making trading decisions. The Exchange notes in that respect that the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed would provide greater efficiencies and reduce errors for vendors and subscribers, including high-frequency traders, that otherwise would have to integrate the data feeds manually. The costs of producing market data include not only the costs of the data distribution infrastructure, but also the costs of designing, maintaining, and operating the exchange’s transaction execution platform and the cost of regulating the exchange to ensure its fair operation and maintain investor confidence. The total return that a trading platform earns reflects the revenues it receives from both products and the joint costs it incurs. Moreover, an exchange’s broker-dealer customers view the costs of transaction executions and of data as a unified cost of doing business with the exchange. A brokerdealer will direct orders to a particular exchange only if the expected revenues from executing trades on the exchange 14 Press Release, U.S. Department of Justice, Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney Holds Conference Call Regarding NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. and IntercontinentalExchange Inc. Abandoning Their Bid for NYSE Euronext (May 16, 2011), available at https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/atr/ speeches/2011/at-speech-110516.html. PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 4703 2333 exceed net transaction execution costs and the cost of data that the brokerdealer chooses to buy to support its trading decisions (or those of its customers). The choice of data products is, in turn, a product of the value of the products in making profitable trading decisions. If the cost of the product exceeds its expected value, the brokerdealer will choose not to buy it. Moreover, as a broker-dealer chooses to direct fewer orders to a particular exchange, the value of the product to that broker-dealer decreases for two reasons. First, the product will contain less information because executions of the broker-dealer’s orders will not be reflected in it. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the product will be less valuable to that broker-dealer because it does not provide information about the venue to which it is directing its orders. Data from the competing venue to which the broker-dealer is directing orders will become correspondingly more valuable. Similarly, in the case of products that are distributed through market data vendors, the vendors provide price discipline for proprietary data products because they control the primary means of access to certain end users. Vendors impose price restraints based upon their business models. For example, vendors such as Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters that assess a surcharge on data they sell may refuse to offer proprietary products that end users will not purchase in sufficient numbers. Internet portals, such as Google, impose a discipline by providing only data that will enable them to attract ‘‘eyeballs’’ that contribute to their advertising revenue. Other market participants have noted that the liquidity provided by the order book, trade execution, core market data, and non-core market data are joint products of a joint platform and have common costs.15 The Exchange agrees 15 See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 62887 (Sept. 10, 2010), 75 FR 57092, 57095 (Sept. 17, 2010) (SR–Phlx-2010–121); Securities Exchange Act Release No. 62907 (Sept. 14, 2010), 75 FR 57314, 57317 (Sept. 20, 2010) (SR–NASDAQ–2010–110); and Securities Exchange Act Release No. 62908 (Sept. 14, 2010) (SR–NASDAQ–2010–111), 75 FR 57321, 57324 (Sept. 20, 2010) (‘‘all of the exchange’s costs are incurred for the unified purposes of attracting order flow, executing and/or routing orders, and generating and selling data about market activity. The total return that an exchange earns reflects the revenues it receives from the joint products and the total costs of the joint products.’’); see also August 1, 2008 Comment Letter of Jeffrey S. Davis, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc., Statement of Janusz Ordover and Gustavo Bamberger (‘‘because market data is both an input to and a byproduct of executing trades on a particular platform, market data and trade E:\FR\FM\17JAN1.SGM Continued 17JAN1 2334 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 10 / Tuesday, January 17, 2012 / Notices srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES with and adopts those discussions and the arguments therein. The Exchange also notes that the economics literature confirms that there is no way to allocate common costs between joint products that would shed any light on competitive or efficient pricing.16 That large market participants, including internalizers handling retail order flow, use proprietary exchange feeds (rather than CTS and CQS feeds) to make trade and routing decisions further demonstrates the joint nature of market data and order flow.17 So does the fact that some exchanges use certain market data quote revenue as a form of a direct market-maker and/or liquidity provider rebate to drive more liquidity to their books in less active stocks. This fact highlights that market data and trade executions are joint products that are linked on a platform basis.18 The Exchange believes that retail broker-dealers, such as Schwab and Fidelity, offer their customers proprietary data only if it promotes trading and generates sufficient commission revenue. Although the business models may differ, these vendors’ pricing discipline is the same: they can simply refuse to purchase any proprietary data product that fails to provide sufficient value. The Exchange and other producers of proprietary data products must understand and respond to these varying business models and pricing disciplines in order to market proprietary data products successfully. execution services are an example of ‘joint products’ with ‘joint costs.’’’), attachment at pg. 4, available at sec.gov/comments/34–57917/3457917– 12.pdf. 16 See generally Mark Hirschey, Fundamentals of Managerial Economics, at 600 (2009) (‘‘It is important to note, however, that although it is possible to determine the separate marginal costs of goods produced in variable proportions, it is impossible to determine their individual average costs. This is because common costs are expenses necessary for manufacture of a joint product. Common costs of production—raw material and equipment costs, management expenses, and other overhead—cannot be allocated to each individual by-product on any economically sound basis. * * * Any allocation of common costs is wrong and arbitrary.’’). This is not new economic theory. See, e.g., F. W. Taussig, ‘‘A Contribution to the Theory of Railway Rates,’’ Quarterly Journal of Economics V(4) 438, 465 (July 1891) (‘‘Yet, surely, the division is purely arbitrary. These items of cost, in fact, are jointly incurred for both sorts of traffic; and I cannot share the hope entertained by the statistician of the Commission, Professor Henry C. Adams, that we shall ever reach a mode of apportionment that will lead to trustworthy results.’’). 17 See Report of the Staffs of the CFTC and SEC to the Joint Advisory Committee on Emerging Regulatory Issues—Findings Regarding the Market Events of May 6, 2010 at 76–79 (Sept. 30, 2010). That report again recognized that retail order flow is generally handled by internalizers. See id. at 77. 18 See Exhibit 3B to Securities Exchange Act Release No. 63291 (Nov. 9, 2010), 75 FR 70311 (Nov. 17, 2010) (SR–NYSEArca-2010–97). VerDate Mar<15>2010 16:12 Jan 13, 2012 Jkt 226001 Moreover, the Exchange believes that products can enhance order flow to the Exchange by providing more widespread distribution of information about transactions in real time, thereby encouraging wider participation in the market by investors with access to the Internet or television. Conversely, the value of such products to distributors and investors decreases if order flow falls because the products contain less content. Analyzing the cost of market data distribution in isolation from the cost of all of the inputs supporting the creation of market data will inevitably underestimate the cost of the data. Thus, because it is impossible to create data without a fast, technologically robust, and well-regulated execution system, system costs and regulatory costs affect the price of market data. It would be equally misleading, however, to attribute all of an exchange’s costs to the market data portion of an exchange’s joint product. Rather, all of an exchange’s costs are incurred for the unified purposes of attracting order flow, executing and/or routing orders, and generating and selling data about market activity. The total return that an exchange earns reflects the revenues it receives from the joint products and the total costs of the joint products. Competition among trading platforms can be expected to constrain the aggregate return that each platform earns from the sale of its joint products, but different platforms may choose from a range of possible, and equally reasonable, pricing strategies as the means of recovering total costs. For example, some platforms may choose to pay rebates to attract orders, charge relatively low prices for market information (or provide information free of charge), and charge relatively high prices for accessing posted liquidity. Other platforms may choose a strategy of paying lower rebates (or no rebates) to attract orders, setting relatively high prices for market information, and setting relatively low prices for accessing posted liquidity. In this environment, there is no economic basis for regulating maximum prices for one of the joint products in an industry in which suppliers face competitive constraints with regard to the joint offering. The level of competition and contestability in the market is evident in the numerous alternative venues that compete for order flow, including 12 equities self-regulatory organization (‘‘SRO’’) markets, as well as internalizing broker-dealers (‘‘BDs’’) and various forms of alternative trading systems (‘‘ATSs’’), including dark pools PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 4703 and electronic communication networks (‘‘ECNs’’). Each SRO market competes to produce transaction reports via trade executions, and two FINRA-regulated Trade Reporting Facilities (‘‘TRFs’’) compete to attract internalized transaction reports. The large number of SROs, TRFs, BDs, and ATSs that currently produce proprietary data or are currently capable of producing it provides further pricing discipline for proprietary data products. Each SRO, TRF, ATS, and BD is currently permitted to produce proprietary data products, and many currently do or have announced plans to do so, including but not limited to the Exchange, NYSE, NYSE Amex, NASDAQ OMX, BATS, and Direct Edge. The fact that proprietary data from ATSs, BDs, and vendors can bypass SROs is significant in two respects. First, non-SROs can compete directly with SROs for the production and sale of proprietary data products. Second, because a single order or transaction report can appear in an SRO proprietary product, a non-SRO proprietary product, or both, the amount of data available via proprietary products is greater in size than the actual number of orders and transaction reports that exist in the marketplace. Because investors can thus find suitable substitutes for most proprietary market data products, a market that overprices its market data products stands a high risk that investors may substitute another source of market information for its own because securities and investment methodologies are fungible. In addition to the competition and price discipline described above, the market for proprietary data products is also highly contestable because market entry is rapid, inexpensive, and profitable. The history of electronic trading is replete with examples of entrants that swiftly grew into some of the largest electronic trading platforms and proprietary data producers: Archipelago, Bloomberg Tradebook, Island, RediBook, Attain, TrackECN, BATS Trading and Direct Edge. Today, BATS has represented that it publishes its market data at no charge on its Web site in order to attract more order flow, and it uses market data revenue rebates that it can provide from resulting additional executions to maintain low execution charges for its users.19 A proliferation of dark pools and other 19 This is simply a securities market-specific example of the well-established principle that in certain circumstances more sales at lower margins can be more profitable than fewer sales at higher margins; the BATS example is additional evidence that market data is an inherent part of a market’s joint platform. E:\FR\FM\17JAN1.SGM 17JAN1 2335 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 10 / Tuesday, January 17, 2012 / Notices ATSs operate profitably with fragmentary shares of consolidated market volume. In this environment, a supercompetitive increase in the fees charged for either transactions or data has the potential to impair revenues from both products. A broker-dealer that shifted its order flow from one platform to another in response to order execution price differentials would both reduce the value of that platform’s market data and reduce its own need to consume data from the disfavored platform. If a platform increases its market data fees, the change may affect the overall cost of doing business with the platform, and affected market participants will assess whether they can lower their trading costs by directing orders elsewhere, thereby lessening the need for the more expensive data, or simply not purchase the data. In establishing the price for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed, the Exchange considered the competitiveness of the market for data and all of the implications of that competition. The Exchange believes that it has considered all relevant factors and has not considered irrelevant factors in order to establish fair, reasonable, and not unreasonably discriminatory fees and an equitable allocation of fees among all users. The existence of alternatives to the Exchange’s product, including realtime consolidated data, free delayed consolidated data, and proprietary data from other sources, as well as the continued availability of the Exchange’s separate data feeds at a lower price, ensures that the Exchange cannot set unreasonable fees, or fees that are unreasonably discriminatory, when vendors and subscribers can elect these alternatives. Accordingly, the Exchange believes that the acceptance of data feed products in the marketplace demonstrates the consistency of these fees with applicable statutory standards. srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES C. Self-Regulatory Organization’s Statement on Comments on the Proposed Rule Change Received From Members, Participants, or Others No written comments were solicited or received with respect to the proposed rule change. III. Date of Effectiveness of the Proposed Rule Change and Timing for Commission Action The foregoing rule change is effective upon filing pursuant to Section 19(b)(3)(A) 20 of the Act and subparagraph (f)(2) of Rule 19b–4 21 20 15 21 17 U.S.C. 78s(b)(3)(A). CFR 240.19b–4(f)(2). VerDate Mar<15>2010 16:12 Jan 13, 2012 Jkt 226001 thereunder, because it establishes a due, fee, or other charge imposed by the NYSE Arca. At any time within 60 days of the filing of such proposed rule change, the Commission summarily may temporarily suspend such rule change if it appears to the Commission that such action is necessary or appropriate in the public interest, for the protection of investors, or otherwise in furtherance of the purposes of the Act. IV. Solicitation of Comments Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views, and arguments concerning the foregoing, including whether the proposed rule change is consistent with the Act. Comments may be submitted by any of the following methods: submissions. You should submit only information that you wish to make available publicly. All submissions should refer to File Number SR– NYSEArca–2011–96 and should be submitted on or before February 7, 2012. For the Commission, by the Division of Trading and Markets, pursuant to delegated authority.22 Kevin M. O’Neill, Deputy Secretary. [FR Doc. 2012–686 Filed 1–13–12; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 8011–01–P SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION [Release No. 34–66126; File No. SR– NASDAQ–2012–003] Electronic Comments • Use the Commission’s Internet comment form (https://www.sec.gov/ rules/sro.shtml); or • Send an email to rule-comments@ sec.gov. Please include File Number SR– NYSEArca–2011–96 on the subject line. Self-Regulatory Organizations; NASDAQ Stock Market LLC; Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of Proposed Rule Change Relating to the Customer Rebate To Add Liquidity in Penny Pilot Options Paper Comments • Send paper comments in triplicate to Elizabeth M. Murphy, Secretary, Securities and Exchange Commission, 100 F Street, NE., Washington, DC 20549–1090. All submissions should refer to File Number SR–NYSEArca–2011–96. This file number should be included on the subject line if email is used. To help the Commission process and review your comments more efficiently, please use only one method. The Commission will post all comments on the Commission’s Internet Web site (https://www.sec.gov/ rules/sro.shtml). Copies of the submission, all subsequent amendments, all written statements with respect to the proposed rule change that are filed with the Commission, and all written communications relating to the proposed rule change between the Commission and any person, other than those that may be withheld from the public in accordance with the provisions of 5 U.S.C. 552, will be available for Web site viewing and printing in the Commission’s Public Reference Room, 100 F Street, NE., Washington, DC 20549, on official business days between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Copies of the filing also will be available for inspection and copying at the principal office of the Exchange. All comments received will be posted without change; the Commission does not edit personal identifying information from Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (‘‘Act’’),1 and Rule 19b–4 thereunder,2 notice is hereby given that on January 3, 2012, The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC (‘‘NASDAQ’’ or ‘‘Exchange’’) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (‘‘Commission’’) the proposed rule change as described in Items I, II, and III below, which Items have been prepared by NASDAQ. The Commission is publishing this notice to solicit comments on the proposed rule change from interested persons. PO 00000 Frm 00079 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 4703 January 10, 2012. I. Self-Regulatory Organization’s Statement of the Terms of Substance of the Proposed Rule Change The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC proposes to modify Rule 7050, governing pricing for NASDAQ members using the NASDAQ Options Market (‘‘NOM’’), NASDAQ’s facility for executing and routing standardized equity and index options. Specifically, NOM proposes to amend the applicability of the Customer Rebate to Add Liquidity for the Penny Pilot 3 Options (‘‘Penny Options’’). 22 17 CFR 200.30–3(a)(12). U.S.C. 78s(b)(1). 2 17 CFR 240.19b–4. 3 The Penny Pilot was established in March 2008 and in October 2009 was expanded and extended through December 31, 2011. See Securities Exchange Act Release Nos. 57579 (March 28, 2008), 73 FR 18587 (April 4, 2008)(SR–NASDAQ–2008– 026)(notice of filing and immediate effectiveness establishing Penny Pilot); 60874 (October 23, 2009), 74 FR 56682 (November 2, 2009)(SR–NASDAQ– 1 15 E:\FR\FM\17JAN1.SGM Continued 17JAN1

Agencies

[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 10 (Tuesday, January 17, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 2331-2335]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-686]


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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

[Release No. 34-66128; File No. SR-NYSEArca-2011-96]


 Self-Regulatory Organizations; NYSE Arca, Inc.; Notice of Filing 
and Immediate Effectiveness of Proposed Rule Change To Establish Fees 
for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed

January 10, 2012.
    Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 
(``Act'') \1\ and Rule 19b-4 thereunder,\2\ notice is hereby given 
that, on December 28, 2011, NYSE Arca, Inc. (the ``Exchange'' or ``NYSE 
Arca'') filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission 
(``Commission'') the proposed rule change as described in Items I, II, 
and III below, which Items have been prepared by the Exchange. The 
Commission is publishing this notice to solicit comments on the 
proposed rule change from interested persons.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1).
    \2\ 17 CFR 240.19b-4.
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I. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Terms of Substance 
of the Proposed Rule Change

    The Exchange proposes to establish fees for the NYSE Arca 
Integrated Data Feed. The text of the proposed rule change is available 
at the Exchange, the Commission's Public Reference Room, and 
www.nyse.com.

II. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and 
Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change

    In its filing with the Commission, the self-regulatory organization 
included statements concerning the purpose of, and basis for, the 
proposed rule change and discussed any comments it received on the 
proposed rule change. The text of those statements may be examined at 
the places specified in Item IV below. The Exchange has prepared 
summaries, set forth in sections A, B, and C below, of the most 
significant parts of such statements.

A. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and 
Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change

1. Purpose
    The Exchange proposes to establish fees for the NYSE Arca 
Integrated Data Feed.\3\ It is a market data product

[[Page 2332]]

offered to vendors and subscribers that combines three existing market 
data feeds as well as additional market data from the Exchange into one 
integrated product. The three existing products are NYSE Arca BBO, NYSE 
Arca Trades, and ArcaBook. In addition, the NYSE Arca Integrated Data 
Feed includes order imbalance information prior to the opening and 
closing of trading and security status information (i.e., delayed 
openings and trading halts). The order imbalance information included 
in the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed is available pursuant to NYSE 
Arca Equities Rule 7.35 \4\ and as part of the NYSE ArcaBook data feed 
product. Security status information is not currently available through 
any other NYSE Arca market data products.\5\ The NYSE Arca Integrated 
Data Feed is available through the Exchange's Liquidity Center Network 
(``LCN'') and the Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure 
(``SFTI'') network.
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    \3\ The proposed rule change establishing the NYSE Arca 
Integrated Data Feed was immediately effective on October 26, 2011. 
See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 65669, (Nov. 2, 2011), 76 FR 
69311 (Nov. 8, 2011) (SR-NYSEArca-2011-78).
    \4\ See https://datasvr.tradearca.com/arcadataserver/Auction.php.
    \5\ Security status information is available for other NYSE 
markets. NYSE Alerts and NYSE Amex Alerts are real-time data feed 
information services from the NYSE and NYSE Amex that provide real-
time messages regarding certain conditions related to the trading of 
NYSE- and NYSE Amex-traded securities, including security trading 
status data.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The proposed fees for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed are as 
follows: \6\
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    \6\ Customers are separately responsible for the appropriate 
ArcaBook professional and nonprofessional user fees and NYSE Arca 
Trades user fees.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
               Fee type                 Monthly fee                          Description
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Direct Access Fee.....................       $3,000  Applies to end users, market data vendors, and extranets.
Redistribution Fee....................        3,000  Additional fee applied to any end user, market data vendor,
                                                      or extranet that redistributes the data feed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Exchange notes that the three existing data feed products (NYSE 
Arca BBO, NYSE Arca Trades, and ArcaBook) would continue to be 
available to vendors and subscribers separately at the same prices at 
which they are currently available.\7\ The monthly access fee for each 
of those feeds on a separate basis is $750.
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    \7\ NYSE Arca expects that data concerning quotations and 
transaction reports required to be disseminated under Rule 602 and 
603 of Regulation NMS will be delivered from the Exchange's matching 
engine to the Securities Information Processor, to the individual 
proprietary feeds described above, and to the NYSE Arca Integrated 
Data Feed at substantially the same time. The Commission notes that 
under Rule 603 NYSE Arca is required to distribute market data on 
terms that are fair and reasonable and not unreasonably 
discriminatory. See 17 CFR 242.603(a). In addition, the Commission 
notes that, ``independently distributed data could not be made 
available on a more timely basis than core data is made available to 
a Network processor. Stated another way, * * * Rule 603(a) prohibits 
an SRO or broker-dealer from transmitting data to a vendor or user 
any sooner than it transmits the data to a Network processor.'' 
Securities Exchange Act Release No. 51808 (June 9, 2005), 70 FR 
37496 (June 29, 2005), at 37567. Accordingly, the Commission notes 
that it would be inconsistent with Rule 603 for NYSE Arca to 
transmit data to the individual proprietary feeds any sooner than it 
transmits data to the Securities Information Processor.
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2. Statutory Basis
    The Exchange believes that the proposed rule change is consistent 
with the provisions of Section 6 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 
(the ``Act'') \8\ in general and with Section 6(b)(4) and 6(b)(5) of 
the Act \9\ in particular in that it provides an equitable allocation 
of reasonable fees among users and recipients of the data and is not 
designed to permit unfair discrimination among customers, issuers, and 
brokers. The NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed fees are reasonable because 
they represent not only the value of the three existing data feeds but 
also the value of the additional market data included (i.e., order 
imbalance information and security status information) and the value of 
receiving the data on an integrated basis. Some vendors and subscribers 
may not have the technology or resources to integrate the separate data 
feeds in a timely and/or efficient manner, and thus the integration 
feature of the product may be valuable to them. The redistribution fee 
also is reasonable because vendors receive value from redistributing 
the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed in their business products for their 
customers. Moreover, the fees are equitably allocated and not unfairly 
discriminatory because vendors and subscribers may choose to continue 
to receive the separate feeds at current prices or can choose to pay 
more for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed in order to receive 
additional and integrated data, thereby allowing the vendors and 
subscribers to choose the best business solution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \8\ 15 U.S.C. 78f(b).
    \9\ 15 U.S.C. 78f(b)(4) and (5).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The existence of alternatives to the NYSE Arca Integrated Data 
Feed, including real-time consolidated data, free delayed consolidated 
data, and proprietary data from other sources, as well as the continued 
availability of the Exchange's separate data feeds, ensures that the 
Exchange cannot set unreasonable fees, or fees that are unreasonably 
discriminatory, when vendors and subscribers can elect such 
alternatives. The recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia Circuit in NetCoalition v. SEC, No. 09-
1042 (DC Cir. 2010), upheld the Commission's reliance upon the 
existence of competitive market mechanisms to set reasonable and 
equitably allocated fees for proprietary market data:

    In fact, the legislative history indicates that the Congress 
intended that the market system `evolve through the interplay of 
competitive forces as unnecessary regulatory restrictions are 
removed' and that the SEC wield its regulatory power `in those 
situations where competition may not be sufficient,' such as in the 
creation of a `consolidated transactional reporting system.'

    NetCoalition at 15 (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 94-229 at 92 (1975), as 
reprinted in 1975 U.S.C.C.A.N. 321, 323). The court agreed with the 
Commission's conclusion that ``Congress intended that `competitive 
forces should dictate the services and practices that constitute the 
U.S. national market system for trading equity securities.' ''\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \10\ NetCoalition at 16.
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    As explained below in the Exchange's Statement on Burden on 
Competition, the Exchange believes that there is substantial evidence 
of competition in the marketplace for data and that the Commission can 
rely upon such evidence in concluding that the fees established in this 
filing are the product of competition and therefore satisfy the 
relevant statutory standards.\11\ As the NetCoalition decision noted, 
the Commission is not required to

[[Page 2333]]

undertake a cost-of-service or ratemaking approach, and the Exchange 
incorporates by reference into this proposed rule change its analysis 
of this topic in another recent rule filing.\12\
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    \11\ Section 916 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and 
Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (``Dodd-Frank Act'') amended 
paragraph (A) of Section 19(b)(3) of the Act, 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(3), 
to make clear that all exchange fees for market data may be filed by 
exchanges on an immediately effective basis.
    \12\ See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 63291 (Nov. 9, 
2010), 75 FR 70311 (Nov. 17, 2010) (SR-NYSEArca-2010-97).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

B. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement on Burden on Competition

    The Exchange does not believe that the proposed rule change will 
impose any burden on competition that is not necessary or appropriate 
in furtherance of the purposes of the Act. An exchange's ability to 
price its data feed products is constrained by (1) competition among 
exchanges and other trading platforms that compete with one another in 
a variety of dimensions, (2) the existence of inexpensive real-time 
consolidated data and free delayed consolidated data, and (3) the 
inherent contestability of the market for proprietary data.
    The market for proprietary data products is currently competitive 
and inherently contestable because there is fierce competition for the 
inputs necessary to the creation of proprietary data and strict pricing 
discipline for the proprietary products themselves. Numerous exchanges 
compete with each other for listings, trades, and market data itself, 
providing virtually limitless opportunities for entrepreneurs who wish 
to produce and distribute their own market data. This proprietary data 
is produced by each individual exchange, as well as other entities, in 
a vigorously competitive market.
    It is common for broker-dealers to further exploit this competition 
by sending their order flow and transaction reports to multiple 
markets, rather than providing them all to a single market. As a recent 
Commission Concept Release noted, the ``current market structure can be 
described as dispersed and complex'' with ``trading volume * * * 
dispersed among many highly automated trading centers that compete for 
order flow in the same stocks'' and ``trading centers offer[ing] a wide 
range of services that are designed to attract different types of 
market participants with varying trading needs.'' \13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \13\ Concept Release on Equity Market Structure, Securities 
Exchange Act Release No. 61358 (Jan. 14, 2010), 75 FR 3594 (Jan. 22, 
2010) (File No. S7-02-10). This Concept Release included data from 
the third quarter of 2009 showing that no market center traded more 
than 20% of the volume of listed stocks, further evidencing the 
dispersal of and competition for trading activity. Id. at 3598.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Competitive markets for order flow, executions, and transaction 
reports provide pricing discipline for the inputs of proprietary data 
products and therefore constrain markets from overpricing proprietary 
market data. The U.S. Department of Justice recently acknowledged the 
aggressive competition among exchanges. In announcing the abandoned bid 
for NYSE Euronext by NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. and IntercontinentalExchange 
Inc., Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney stated that exchanges 
``compete head to head to offer real-time equity data products. These 
data products include the best bid and offer of every exchange and 
information on each equity trade, including the last sale.'' \14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \14\ Press Release, U.S. Department of Justice, Assistant 
Attorney General Christine Varney Holds Conference Call Regarding 
NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. and IntercontinentalExchange Inc. Abandoning 
Their Bid for NYSE Euronext (May 16, 2011), available at https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/atr/speeches/2011/at-speech-110516.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Transaction execution and proprietary data products are 
complementary in that market data is both an input and a byproduct of 
the execution service. In fact, market data and trade execution are a 
paradigmatic example of joint products with joint costs. The decision 
whether and on which platform to post an order will depend on the 
attributes of the platform where the order can be posted, including the 
execution fees, data quality, and price and distribution of its data 
products. Without trade executions, exchange data products cannot 
exist. Moreover, data products are valuable to many end users only 
insofar as they provide information that end users expect will assist 
them or their customers in making trading decisions. The Exchange notes 
in that respect that the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed would provide 
greater efficiencies and reduce errors for vendors and subscribers, 
including high-frequency traders, that otherwise would have to 
integrate the data feeds manually.
    The costs of producing market data include not only the costs of 
the data distribution infrastructure, but also the costs of designing, 
maintaining, and operating the exchange's transaction execution 
platform and the cost of regulating the exchange to ensure its fair 
operation and maintain investor confidence. The total return that a 
trading platform earns reflects the revenues it receives from both 
products and the joint costs it incurs. Moreover, an exchange's broker-
dealer customers view the costs of transaction executions and of data 
as a unified cost of doing business with the exchange. A broker-dealer 
will direct orders to a particular exchange only if the expected 
revenues from executing trades on the exchange exceed net transaction 
execution costs and the cost of data that the broker-dealer chooses to 
buy to support its trading decisions (or those of its customers). The 
choice of data products is, in turn, a product of the value of the 
products in making profitable trading decisions. If the cost of the 
product exceeds its expected value, the broker-dealer will choose not 
to buy it.
    Moreover, as a broker-dealer chooses to direct fewer orders to a 
particular exchange, the value of the product to that broker-dealer 
decreases for two reasons. First, the product will contain less 
information because executions of the broker-dealer's orders will not 
be reflected in it. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the product 
will be less valuable to that broker-dealer because it does not provide 
information about the venue to which it is directing its orders. Data 
from the competing venue to which the broker-dealer is directing orders 
will become correspondingly more valuable.
    Similarly, in the case of products that are distributed through 
market data vendors, the vendors provide price discipline for 
proprietary data products because they control the primary means of 
access to certain end users. Vendors impose price restraints based upon 
their business models. For example, vendors such as Bloomberg and 
Thomson Reuters that assess a surcharge on data they sell may refuse to 
offer proprietary products that end users will not purchase in 
sufficient numbers. Internet portals, such as Google, impose a 
discipline by providing only data that will enable them to attract 
``eyeballs'' that contribute to their advertising revenue.
    Other market participants have noted that the liquidity provided by 
the order book, trade execution, core market data, and non-core market 
data are joint products of a joint platform and have common costs.\15\ 
The Exchange agrees

[[Page 2334]]

with and adopts those discussions and the arguments therein. The 
Exchange also notes that the economics literature confirms that there 
is no way to allocate common costs between joint products that would 
shed any light on competitive or efficient pricing.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \15\ See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 62887 (Sept. 10, 
2010), 75 FR 57092, 57095 (Sept. 17, 2010) (SR-Phlx-2010-121); 
Securities Exchange Act Release No. 62907 (Sept. 14, 2010), 75 FR 
57314, 57317 (Sept. 20, 2010) (SR-NASDAQ-2010-110); and Securities 
Exchange Act Release No. 62908 (Sept. 14, 2010) (SR-NASDAQ-2010-
111), 75 FR 57321, 57324 (Sept. 20, 2010) (``all of the exchange's 
costs are incurred for the unified purposes of attracting order 
flow, executing and/or routing orders, and generating and selling 
data about market activity. The total return that an exchange earns 
reflects the revenues it receives from the joint products and the 
total costs of the joint products.''); see also August 1, 2008 
Comment Letter of Jeffrey S. Davis, Vice President and Deputy 
General Counsel, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc., Statement of Janusz Ordover 
and Gustavo Bamberger (``because market data is both an input to and 
a byproduct of executing trades on a particular platform, market 
data and trade execution services are an example of `joint products' 
with `joint costs.'''), attachment at pg. 4, available at sec.gov/comments/34-57917/3457917-12.pdf.
    \16\ See generally Mark Hirschey, Fundamentals of Managerial 
Economics, at 600 (2009) (``It is important to note, however, that 
although it is possible to determine the separate marginal costs of 
goods produced in variable proportions, it is impossible to 
determine their individual average costs. This is because common 
costs are expenses necessary for manufacture of a joint product. 
Common costs of production--raw material and equipment costs, 
management expenses, and other overhead--cannot be allocated to each 
individual by-product on any economically sound basis. * * * Any 
allocation of common costs is wrong and arbitrary.''). This is not 
new economic theory. See, e.g., F. W. Taussig, ``A Contribution to 
the Theory of Railway Rates,'' Quarterly Journal of Economics V(4) 
438, 465 (July 1891) (``Yet, surely, the division is purely 
arbitrary. These items of cost, in fact, are jointly incurred for 
both sorts of traffic; and I cannot share the hope entertained by 
the statistician of the Commission, Professor Henry C. Adams, that 
we shall ever reach a mode of apportionment that will lead to 
trustworthy results.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    That large market participants, including internalizers handling 
retail order flow, use proprietary exchange feeds (rather than CTS and 
CQS feeds) to make trade and routing decisions further demonstrates the 
joint nature of market data and order flow.\17\ So does the fact that 
some exchanges use certain market data quote revenue as a form of a 
direct market-maker and/or liquidity provider rebate to drive more 
liquidity to their books in less active stocks. This fact highlights 
that market data and trade executions are joint products that are 
linked on a platform basis.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \17\ See Report of the Staffs of the CFTC and SEC to the Joint 
Advisory Committee on Emerging Regulatory Issues--Findings Regarding 
the Market Events of May 6, 2010 at 76-79 (Sept. 30, 2010). That 
report again recognized that retail order flow is generally handled 
by internalizers. See id. at 77.
    \18\ See Exhibit 3B to Securities Exchange Act Release No. 63291 
(Nov. 9, 2010), 75 FR 70311 (Nov. 17, 2010) (SR-NYSEArca-2010-97).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Exchange believes that retail broker-dealers, such as Schwab 
and Fidelity, offer their customers proprietary data only if it 
promotes trading and generates sufficient commission revenue. Although 
the business models may differ, these vendors' pricing discipline is 
the same: they can simply refuse to purchase any proprietary data 
product that fails to provide sufficient value. The Exchange and other 
producers of proprietary data products must understand and respond to 
these varying business models and pricing disciplines in order to 
market proprietary data products successfully. Moreover, the Exchange 
believes that products can enhance order flow to the Exchange by 
providing more widespread distribution of information about 
transactions in real time, thereby encouraging wider participation in 
the market by investors with access to the Internet or television. 
Conversely, the value of such products to distributors and investors 
decreases if order flow falls because the products contain less 
content.
    Analyzing the cost of market data distribution in isolation from 
the cost of all of the inputs supporting the creation of market data 
will inevitably underestimate the cost of the data. Thus, because it is 
impossible to create data without a fast, technologically robust, and 
well-regulated execution system, system costs and regulatory costs 
affect the price of market data. It would be equally misleading, 
however, to attribute all of an exchange's costs to the market data 
portion of an exchange's joint product. Rather, all of an exchange's 
costs are incurred for the unified purposes of attracting order flow, 
executing and/or routing orders, and generating and selling data about 
market activity. The total return that an exchange earns reflects the 
revenues it receives from the joint products and the total costs of the 
joint products.
    Competition among trading platforms can be expected to constrain 
the aggregate return that each platform earns from the sale of its 
joint products, but different platforms may choose from a range of 
possible, and equally reasonable, pricing strategies as the means of 
recovering total costs. For example, some platforms may choose to pay 
rebates to attract orders, charge relatively low prices for market 
information (or provide information free of charge), and charge 
relatively high prices for accessing posted liquidity. Other platforms 
may choose a strategy of paying lower rebates (or no rebates) to 
attract orders, setting relatively high prices for market information, 
and setting relatively low prices for accessing posted liquidity. In 
this environment, there is no economic basis for regulating maximum 
prices for one of the joint products in an industry in which suppliers 
face competitive constraints with regard to the joint offering.
    The level of competition and contestability in the market is 
evident in the numerous alternative venues that compete for order flow, 
including 12 equities self-regulatory organization (``SRO'') markets, 
as well as internalizing broker-dealers (``BDs'') and various forms of 
alternative trading systems (``ATSs''), including dark pools and 
electronic communication networks (``ECNs''). Each SRO market competes 
to produce transaction reports via trade executions, and two FINRA-
regulated Trade Reporting Facilities (``TRFs'') compete to attract 
internalized transaction reports.
    The large number of SROs, TRFs, BDs, and ATSs that currently 
produce proprietary data or are currently capable of producing it 
provides further pricing discipline for proprietary data products. Each 
SRO, TRF, ATS, and BD is currently permitted to produce proprietary 
data products, and many currently do or have announced plans to do so, 
including but not limited to the Exchange, NYSE, NYSE Amex, NASDAQ OMX, 
BATS, and Direct Edge.
    The fact that proprietary data from ATSs, BDs, and vendors can 
bypass SROs is significant in two respects. First, non-SROs can compete 
directly with SROs for the production and sale of proprietary data 
products. Second, because a single order or transaction report can 
appear in an SRO proprietary product, a non-SRO proprietary product, or 
both, the amount of data available via proprietary products is greater 
in size than the actual number of orders and transaction reports that 
exist in the marketplace. Because investors can thus find suitable 
substitutes for most proprietary market data products, a market that 
overprices its market data products stands a high risk that investors 
may substitute another source of market information for its own because 
securities and investment methodologies are fungible.
    In addition to the competition and price discipline described 
above, the market for proprietary data products is also highly 
contestable because market entry is rapid, inexpensive, and profitable. 
The history of electronic trading is replete with examples of entrants 
that swiftly grew into some of the largest electronic trading platforms 
and proprietary data producers: Archipelago, Bloomberg Tradebook, 
Island, RediBook, Attain, TrackECN, BATS Trading and Direct Edge. 
Today, BATS has represented that it publishes its market data at no 
charge on its Web site in order to attract more order flow, and it uses 
market data revenue rebates that it can provide from resulting 
additional executions to maintain low execution charges for its 
users.\19\ A proliferation of dark pools and other

[[Page 2335]]

ATSs operate profitably with fragmentary shares of consolidated market 
volume.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \19\ This is simply a securities market-specific example of the 
well-established principle that in certain circumstances more sales 
at lower margins can be more profitable than fewer sales at higher 
margins; the BATS example is additional evidence that market data is 
an inherent part of a market's joint platform.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In this environment, a super-competitive increase in the fees 
charged for either transactions or data has the potential to impair 
revenues from both products. A broker-dealer that shifted its order 
flow from one platform to another in response to order execution price 
differentials would both reduce the value of that platform's market 
data and reduce its own need to consume data from the disfavored 
platform. If a platform increases its market data fees, the change may 
affect the overall cost of doing business with the platform, and 
affected market participants will assess whether they can lower their 
trading costs by directing orders elsewhere, thereby lessening the need 
for the more expensive data, or simply not purchase the data.
    In establishing the price for the NYSE Arca Integrated Data Feed, 
the Exchange considered the competitiveness of the market for data and 
all of the implications of that competition. The Exchange believes that 
it has considered all relevant factors and has not considered 
irrelevant factors in order to establish fair, reasonable, and not 
unreasonably discriminatory fees and an equitable allocation of fees 
among all users. The existence of alternatives to the Exchange's 
product, including real-time consolidated data, free delayed 
consolidated data, and proprietary data from other sources, as well as 
the continued availability of the Exchange's separate data feeds at a 
lower price, ensures that the Exchange cannot set unreasonable fees, or 
fees that are unreasonably discriminatory, when vendors and subscribers 
can elect these alternatives. Accordingly, the Exchange believes that 
the acceptance of data feed products in the marketplace demonstrates 
the consistency of these fees with applicable statutory standards.

C. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement on Comments on the Proposed 
Rule Change Received From Members, Participants, or Others

    No written comments were solicited or received with respect to the 
proposed rule change.

III. Date of Effectiveness of the Proposed Rule Change and Timing for 
Commission Action

    The foregoing rule change is effective upon filing pursuant to 
Section 19(b)(3)(A) \20\ of the Act and subparagraph (f)(2) of Rule 
19b-4 \21\ thereunder, because it establishes a due, fee, or other 
charge imposed by the NYSE Arca.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \20\ 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(3)(A).
    \21\ 17 CFR 240.19b-4(f)(2).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    At any time within 60 days of the filing of such proposed rule 
change, the Commission summarily may temporarily suspend such rule 
change if it appears to the Commission that such action is necessary or 
appropriate in the public interest, for the protection of investors, or 
otherwise in furtherance of the purposes of the Act.

IV. Solicitation of Comments

    Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views, and 
arguments concerning the foregoing, including whether the proposed rule 
change is consistent with the Act. Comments may be submitted by any of 
the following methods:

Electronic Comments

     Use the Commission's Internet comment form (https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro.shtml); or
     Send an email to rule-comments@sec.gov. Please include 
File Number SR-NYSEArca-2011-96 on the subject line.

Paper Comments

     Send paper comments in triplicate to Elizabeth M. Murphy, 
Secretary, Securities and Exchange Commission, 100 F Street, NE., 
Washington, DC 20549-1090.

All submissions should refer to File Number SR-NYSEArca-2011-96. This 
file number should be included on the subject line if email is used. To 
help the Commission process and review your comments more efficiently, 
please use only one method. The Commission will post all comments on 
the Commission's Internet Web site (https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro.shtml). Copies of the submission, all subsequent amendments, all 
written statements with respect to the proposed rule change that are 
filed with the Commission, and all written communications relating to 
the proposed rule change between the Commission and any person, other 
than those that may be withheld from the public in accordance with the 
provisions of 5 U.S.C. 552, will be available for Web site viewing and 
printing in the Commission's Public Reference Room, 100 F Street, NE., 
Washington, DC 20549, on official business days between the hours of 10 
a.m. and 3 p.m. Copies of the filing also will be available for 
inspection and copying at the principal office of the Exchange. All 
comments received will be posted without change; the Commission does 
not edit personal identifying information from submissions. You should 
submit only information that you wish to make available publicly. All 
submissions should refer to File Number SR-NYSEArca-2011-96 and should 
be submitted on or before February 7, 2012.

    For the Commission, by the Division of Trading and Markets, 
pursuant to delegated authority.\22\
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    \22\ 17 CFR 200.30-3(a)(12).
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Kevin M. O'Neill,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2012-686 Filed 1-13-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8011-01-P
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