US regulators want to reform the controversial Wall Street trading practice known as ‘payment for order flow’, whereby retail brokers collectively make billions of dollars a year selling their customers’ orders to the country’s biggest trading firms.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been looking at the inner workings of share trading in the US after pandemic lockdowns prompted an explosion of activity among private retail investors.
That surge of interest culminated in dramatic spikes in the prices of popular so-called meme stocks, such as GameStop, last January — and the imposition of trading restrictions by some firms. These halts in trading drew fire from politicians in Washington, and the attention of Gary Gensler, chair of the SEC.