SEC Says Nanoseconds Good Enough for Timestamps
Commentary by Steven Lofchie
The SEC granted a request from the various securities exchanges to provide limited exemptive relief from timestamp granularity requirements under the National Market System Plan Governing the Consolidated Audit Trail ("CAT") (or "CAT NMS Plan").
The exchanges will not be required to utilize timestamps in increments finer than nanoseconds when reporting CAT Data to the Central Repository. The SEC reasoned that the relief will (i) facilitate cost-saving efforts and (ii) reduce "build[ing] time" without disrupting regulators' ability to use CAT.
The exemption is for five years.
Commentary
Excerpt from Swann's Way, Remembrance of Things Past, Volume One, Marcel Proust (1871–1922): "The hour when an invalid, who has been obliged to start on a journey and to sleep in a strange hotel, awakens in a moment of illness and sees with glad relief a streak of daylight shewing under his bedroom door. Oh, joy of joys! it is morning. The servants will be about in a minute: he can ring, and some one will come to look after him. The thought of being made comfortable gives him strength to endure his pain. He is certain he heard footsteps: they come nearer, and then die away. The ray of light beneath his door is extinguished. It is midnight; some one has turned out the gas; the last servant has gone to bed, and he must lie all night in agony with no one to bring him any help."