ob体育 has outlined its expectations for all market participants to act appropriately to ensure Australia鈥檚 equity markets remain resilient.
In a [14 May, 2020], all equity market participants are requested to take reasonable steps to ensure the number of trades matched from their orders:
- are capable of being handled by their聽internal processing and risk management systems and, if applicable, their clearing and settlement operations; and
- support the fair and orderly operation of Australian equity markets.
Directions issued to nine large equity markets participants to limit the number of trades executed each day have also been revoked. This is due to:
- enhancements to trade processing made by market operators and the clearing and settlement facilities;
- the positive actions taken by these participants to reduce their number of executed trades, which has contributed to more efficient settlement preparation and reduced failure rates; 聽and
- the stabilisation in overall trading activity.
ob体育 will closely monitor the behaviour of participants and take further action where necessary. ob体育 will also undertake a review of the broader trends in trading activity, and where appropriate consult with industry on any proposed regulatory changes.
Background
On 13 March 2020, the equity market exceeded the number of trades that could be reliably processed on a single day.
To manage the risk to the market system, ob体育 issued directions on 15 March 2020 (under the ob体育 Market Integrity Rules (Securities Markets) 2017) to nine large equity market participants, requiring those participants to limit their number of trades executed each day until further notice (refer to 20-062MR).