Wall Street’s Bond Trading, Allocation Under Finra Review
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The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is examining whether Wall Street firms overcharge investors on some bond trades and whether they unfairly allocate new corporate debt issues to reward certain clients.
Richard Ketchum, the chairman and chief executive officer of Wall Street’s self-regulator, said Finra is looking at trading data to see if brokers sometimes earn unusually large profits on bond trades, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The investigation could lead to enforcement action or an instruction to reduce the spread between buying and selling prices, the report said. Nancy Condon, a spokeswoman for Finra, confirmed the report in an e-mail.