NYSE’s first female president talks SEC pilot program

New York Stock Exchange President Stacey Cunningham on Tuesday joined FOX Business to discuss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) transaction fee pilot program.

The SEC said in March it planned to launch an experiment to test the effects of lowering stock exchange fees. Cunningham, who recently became the first female president of the iconic stock exchange, said the program would make it harder to compete with private exchanges, known as dark pools, which are less regulated.

“If they are looking to study broker conflicts with 40% of the market happening off of exchanges in those dark pools, they are not addressing any of that with this pilot,” she told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria” on Tuesday. “They want to know that their brokers are doing what’s best for them. But if we are only studying a portion of the market we are not getting that information.”

Trump, who has advocated rolling back financial regulations, signed a bill in May easing rules on all but the largest banks. Cunningham said she plans to meet with Trump to discuss how the program is not doing what it was intended to do.

“I think he would be surprised if he realized where we were heading with some of these regulations,” she said. “It’s really interesting to see.”