Market Surveillance

We’d like to take a moment to talk about our video doorbell and why we love it. First, it allows us to surveil what’s happening on our front porch. Second, it serves as a deterrent against any would-be shady porch-related behavior (looking at you, porch pirates). And third, if anything nefarious does happen on our porch, it allows us to investigate and take action against the shadesters.

Market surveillance does for financial markets what our video doorbell does for our front porch: it observes what’s going on, investigates it, and hopefully helps prevent bad trading behavior. This can be done at the federal government level, like with SEC regulations and investigations, but many organizations and exchanges also have their own market surveillance procedures and divisions. The goal is to make trading and investing as transparent, lawful, and ethical as possible.

Does it work 100% of the time? No, it does not; when people and organizations want to be shady, they’ll find a way to be shady. But as market surveillance techniques become more advanced and refined, we’ll hopefully continue to stop most bad behavior before it even steps onto our financial front porch.