Full steam ahead

Yesterday ESMA published the long outstanding reference data for equities and bonds. Captains of the industry might worry little about abbreviations such as LIS, SMS, ADT, AVT or ADNT. But the engineers below deck understand perfectly well that these are the crucial coordinates to keep the ship on course. The reference data allows you to work out what MiFID II really means at an instrument-by-instrument level and turn lofty principles written in MiFID II into something tangible. For example, while MiFID II introduces increased transparency requirements in equities, it roughly classifies 93% of the instruments as illiquid allowing them to be exempt from the strictest rules. As we slowly comprehend the full impact, and with some ongoing fine tuning by the regulators, the discussion will certainly continue. And in the meantime there is not much left to say, other than full steam ahead towards January 3rd.