On May 26, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed new Rule 613, which would require the national securities exchanges and national securities associations (collectively, “SROs”) to develop a consolidated audit trail. Under the proposal, the SROs are to work together to implement a consolidated order tracking system with respect to the trading of all national market system securities (“NMS stocks”) and listed equity options. The proposal would put in place a centralized and standardized system to track and give regulators access to information related to trading orders received and executed across the securities markets, where possible on a real-time basis. According to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, such a system “would allow [regulators] to rapidly reconstruct trading activity and quickly analyze both suspicious trading behavior and unusual market events.”1