The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday voted to propose some of the biggest changes to American equity market structure in nearly two decades, aimed at boosting transparency and fairness while increasing competition for individual investors' stock orders, Reuters reported. The proposals include requiring marketable retail stock orders to be sent to auctions before they are executed, a new standard for brokers to show they get the best possible executions for client orders, and lower trading increments and access fees on exchanges, the SEC said. "We feel that these reforms, if enacted, will ultimately help the price discovery process and save investor’s money," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading. "Allowing orders to interact with each other, rather than segmenting them, will enhance competition and yield better prices." Opening up individual investor orders that can be immediately executed to competitive auctions could lead to "significantly" better prices for investors, the SEC said. Under current practice, retail brokers send most such orders to wholesale brokers, sometimes for a fee.
