Money managers could bring their strategies to market more quickly through an active exchange traded fund as the New York Stock Exchange’s Arca proposes a rule change on how funds are listed.
Laura Morrison, head of global index and exchange-traded products at NYSE, said the Securities and Exchange Commission formally recognized a February filing and a March 4 regulatory notice from the SEC was the final step before the proposal will be put up for public review, reports Katy Burne for the Wall Street Journal.
In February, the exchange petitioned the SEC to amend its generic listing standards in an attempt to allow certain active exchange traded products to list without receiving permission from the regulator’s Division of Trading and Markets under Form 19b-4. The Form essentially conducts a secondary review of an ETF, which can add months to a year in the approval process. [Proposed Rule Change Could Expedite Active ETF Launches]
If the SEC allows the rule change, NYSE Arca would adopt listing standards for so-called managed fund shares like the ETFs, creating uniform standards for listing timeframes to two to three months. The amended rules would help expedite the approval process for over 100 actively managed ETFs still waiting to be listed, including those from BlackRock Inc.’s iShares unit, State Street Global Advisors and WisdomTree Investments Inc., among others, Morrison added.