Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White called Monday for greater government regulation of the vast market for U.S. Treasury securities, saying that the market needs transparency and registration rules that apply to stock markets.
Regulatory regimes for securities traded on exchanges or by broker-dealers “have historically not reached activities in the U.S. Treasury market to the same extent as activities in the equity markets,” White said at a conference on Treasury markets in New York City. “It is time for change.
“The controls we put in place around trading practices in many cases should apply to U.S. Treasury securities as well as equities, especially where those practices can threaten to destabilize markets or hurt investors,” White said.
In particular, she said regulators need full access to data on trading in the $14 trillion Treasury market. She also called for certain traders and trading platforms to have to register with and face examinations from regulators.
Government officials have been contemplating changes for the Treasury market largely because of elevated fears about potential negative effects of new post-crisis rules. A brief, massive bout of market volatility on Oct. 15, 2014, also spurred officials to begin examining whether there were problems in Treasury markets.
Treasury official Antonio Weiss, tasked with leading that analysis, said Monday that government officials need more transparency into Treasury markets and more information that they currently don’t have.
