BERLIN—Germany is set to advance a bill Wednesday imposing a spate of new rules on high-frequency trading...
Germany joins France and the European Union in seeking to rein in the rapid traders amid a larger effort to regulate the finance industry following the crisis. The United Kingdom also is considering new rules, and Germany hopes its bill will put pressure on other European leaders to support EU-wide regulation for high-frequency trading.
The developments come ahead of a European Parliament vote on the review of the Market in Financial Instruments Directive, Europe's key piece of securities-market overhaul. The vote, scheduled for Wednesday, is expected to establish the Parliament's position on a number of stringent new rules, including "speed bumps" for high-frequency trading.
These include the requirement for orders to rest on the exchange order book for a minimum of half a second—an eternity for firms accustomed to trading in millionths of a second—before they can be canceled or modified, and penalties for high cancellation rates.
