FCA Plans to Address Misleading Market Liquidity Reports

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is planning to collect and publish comprehensive trading data for London-listed stocks across various trading venues, according to the Financial Times. This initiative aims to tackle what the FCA perceives as a significant underreporting of market liquidity, which has led some companies to consider relocating their listings to the United States. According to Jin10, the FCA's unconventional plan involves gathering and releasing all stock trading data from exchanges and dark pools, reflecting the regulator's frustration with misleading and overly negative portrayals of UK market liquidity. Simon Walls, the FCA's interim head of markets, stated, "In reality, the liquidity in the UK market is far higher than typically reported, and this misrepresentation is absurd."