NASD Successor “FINRA” Hypes Retail Investor Online Info Section

The new Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has launched a section on its website to provide online information for retail investors.

The “Market Data” section on FINRA’s website provides data on equities, options, mutual funds and corporate, municipal, Treasury and Agency bonds. The site also provides a page for all stock exchange-listed companies, including a company description, recent news stories and Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and an interactive list of domestic securities the company issues.

The site also provides equities indices and the FINRA-Bloomberg Active U.S. Corporate Bond Indices for investment-grade and high-yield bonds. Additionally, the site features U.S. Treasury Benchmark yields, market news an economic calendar and other information indicating current market conditions.

Although such ratings have been greatly maligned Market Data’s coverage also includes credit ratings from the three major rating agencies. Real-time transacted price information is also provided for corporate bonds and municipal bonds along with end-of-day prices are provided for Treasury bonds.

The purpose of the site is unclear, since most online data services along with Yahoo and other search sites make the same information available. One would think that the job of regulation of tens of millions of accounts through hundreds of thousands of brokers at over 5,000 investments firms would keep the non-profit organization of investment firms charged with primary regulation of its members busy enough.

Shepherd Smith and Edwards represents investors nationwide in actions against securities firms and/or their representatives. If you, your firm or your pension fund has sustained losses as a result of fraud, negligence or other wrongdoing contact us to arrange a free consultation with one of our attorneys.