SEC Approves Expansion of TRACE to Agency Debt

 FINRA announced today that the SEC approved a major expansion of FINRA's Trade Compliance and Reporting Engine (TRACE) to include debt issued by federal government agencies, government corporations and government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), as well as primary market transactions in new issues.  Currently, TRACE reports real time pricing and trade volume information only on corporate bonds trading in the secondary market. The expansion into agency debt will become effective on March 1, 2010. Details about the expansion and its implementation are available at FINRA Regulatory Notice 09-57.