What Market Integrity Rules does nabtrade comply with?

Market Integrity Rules play an important role in maintaining investor confidence in Australia’s financial markets.

The nabtrade service is provided by WealthHub Securities Limited, a licensed Market Participant, that is required to comply with the ASIC Market Integrity Rules. Through the nabtrade platform, we seek to support fair, orderly, and transparent markets.

To support market integrity, trading activity on the nabtrade platform must not create, or be likely to create, a false or misleading appearance of active trading, supply, demand, or price in a listed security. Certain conduct that undermines the integrity of the market may be regarded as market misconduct.

Inappropriate order activity

Examples of order activity that may be deemed inappropriate include, but are not limited to:

• Marking the close - Buying or selling shares near market closing time with the intention of influencing the closing or last traded price of a security.
• Spoofing or ramping - Placing large orders, or multiple smaller orders, with the intention of cancelling them prior to execution, or otherwise creating a misleading impression of market interest or liquidity.
• Small or order splitting activity / price support - Placing a series of small or low value orders without a legitimate investment rationale, particularly where the intention is to incrementally move or artificially support the price of a security over time.
• Layering or stacking - Submitting multiple buy or sell orders at different price levels above or below the prevailing market price to give a false impression of market depth or demand.
• Pump and dump behaviour - Artificially inflating the price of a security (often involving coordination between multiple parties) before selling into the increased price, which may mislead other market participants.
• Insider trading - Buying or selling a security while in possession of material price sensitive information that is not generally available.
• Pre arranged trading - Entering into arrangements where a buyer and seller coordinate trades in advance with the intention that their orders will match on market.

How nabtrade may respond

Where nabtrade has concerns about an order or trading activity, we may take actions in accordance with the nabtrade Client Agreement, including (but not limited to):

• rejecting or cancelling an order
• referring your order to the nabtrade Trading Desk for further review
• contacting you to discuss your trading activity
• escalating concerns to relevant regulators, including ASIC, where required
• placing restrictions on, suspending or closing your account where appropriate

These steps are taken to meet regulatory obligations and to maintain confidence in the integrity of Australian financial markets.