By: Sean Davy and Rob Toomey
On
May 24, SIFMA hosted the Fixed Income Market Structure Seminar,
bringing together market participants to discuss the latest developments
in fixed income markets including: new and future regulations;
Treasury's RFI; liquidity and data transparency; and technology and
electronic bond trading platforms.
U.S. capital markets are the deepest and
most developed in the world; today, technological change and innovation
has added to their complexity. Add to these developments, newspaper
headlines on the "flash rally" of October 2014, and market structure and
its regulation have become a hot topic. Market participants, policy
makers, regulators and the public have a stake, and increasingly an
opinion, on the ideal structure for our fixed income markets.
Randy Snook, SIFMA's Executive Vice
President for Business Policy and Practices, opened the Fixed Income
Market Structure Seminar, noting the need for industry and regulators to
work together to understand and adapt to technological changes in fixed
income markets.
"One thing is very clear: there is change taking place in both infrastructure and in the profile of market participants. As is often the case, this change comes with a great deal of innovation and experimentation, and that can be a healthy process as markets and participants adapt. The official sector plays a key role in overseeing our markets and by necessity seeks input from the industry to better understand how they can foster healthy markets."
Snook further added that as new
regulations are developed they must seek the right balance, calibrating
policies that keep pace with an increasingly connected and technology
driven financial marketplace..... Read more...