Recording Order Information
Member firms must also keep a meticulous record of all transactions they initiate, agree to, or complete. To enable the timely recording of trading activity, FINRA in 1997 established the Order Audit Trail System (OATS), a time-sensitive audit trail for order, quote, and trade information. OATS provides a timed record of the sequence of events involved in any securities transaction. Specifically, OATS records the time an order is entered, the time it is executed, and the time it is modified or cancelled. Broker-dealers must record these events as they occur throughout the day (within one second of when they actually occur).
In addition, broker-dealers must submit daily reports to OATS for all open orders or executed trades. Order information to be