Healthy Markets Association Releases 2017 Healthy Markets Questionnaire

Jay OwenReforming Global Finance, SRI/ESG News

Comprehensive questionnaire helps investors and brokers identify risks and opportunities with their trading venues.

Investors and brokers need to know about their execution venues’ technology, costs, and conflicts of interest, and this questionnaire helps give them the tough questions to ask.

On Tuesday, July 25, 2017, the Healthy Markets Association released its second edition of its groundbreaking questionnaire for alternative trading systems (ATSs). The 2017 Healthy Markets ATS Questionnaire is intended to help investors and brokers identify the risks and opportunities posed by ATSs, and make smarter order routing decisions.

ATSs play a critical role in today’s modern markets. Despite the fundamental reorganization of trading in the capital markets in the past 15 years, the rules governing ATSs haven’t changed. Unfortunately, several high-profile enforcement cases and press reports have made it clear that investors and brokers must protect themselves when using these trading platforms. But without clear guidance from regulators, the question has been how to do it.

Healthy Markets is helping to fill the void.

“At Healthy Markets, we believe that transparency is essential to protecting investors,” said Tyler Gellasch, Executive Director. “Investors and brokers need to know about their execution venues’ technology, costs, and conflicts of interest, and this questionnaire helps give them the tough questions to ask.”

In 2015, the Healthy Markets Association sent the 2015 Healthy Markets ATS Questionnaire to 18 of the leading ATSs, which it then used to construct the first-of-its-kind, ATS Transparency Index, as well as the 173-page 2016 ATS Risk Assessment. These tools have helped numerous investors and brokers make more informed venue routing decisions.

This 2017 Healthy Markets ATS Questionnaire will do that again.

ABOUT HEALTHY MARKETS
Healthy Markets is an investor-focused not-for-profit coalition looking to educate market participants and promote data-driven reforms to market structure challenges. Our members, who range from a few billion to hundreds of billions of dollars in AUM, have come together behind one basic principle: Informed investors and policymakers are essential for healthy capital markets.

Healthy Markets can be found online at healthymarkets.org.