SEC Proposes To Rescind Order Protection Rule; Long-Term Plus For Tokenization

Research evidence excerpt

SEC Proposes To Rescind Order Protection Rule; Long-Term Plus For Tokenization

TD Securities (USA) LLC POLICY NOTE

June 11, 2026

■WRG Financial Services SEC Proposes To Rescind Order Protection

Rule; Long-Term Plus For Tokenization

Jaret Seiberg THE TD COWEN INSIGHT

202 868 5313

The SEC today proposed eliminating the Order Protection Rule, which means trades would not

jaret.seiberg@tdsecurities.com

need to be executed at the best available price. We expect the agency will finalize the repeal

in early 2027. This should be positive for the tokenization of equity securities though exemptive

relief is still needed. We note the SEC said this could reduce the number of existing exchanges.

What Is Happening

The SEC today published a 267-page proposal to eliminate the Order Protection Rule.

Highlights include:

■This would repeal Rule 611, which requires trades be executed at the best available price

regardless of the trading venue.

■It also repeals Rule 610(e), which restricts locking and crossing quotations in national

market system stocks.

■The SEC says the changes will mean that market participants will no longer be required to

connect to every exchange, which should reduce connectivity, market data, routing and

compliance costs.

■The proposal could reduce the number of existing exchanges as they would no longer be

guaranteed to collect connectivity and market data fees.

■Broker-Dealers still must seek best execution, though that may include factors other than

price such as order size, the difficulty of completing the trade, execution speed, and

clearing costs.

■This is out for 60 days of comment upon publication in the Federal Register.

Our View

■We see this being adopted. Repealing OPR has been a long-term priority for SEC Chair Paul

Atkins.