Consolidated Tape

The consolidated tape is the authoritative record of executed trades in US equity markets. Every exchange, alternative trading system, and market maker that executes a trade in a listed security is required to report that transaction to the consolidated tape within one second. The tape then disseminates this information publicly, creating a unified, complete picture of market activity regardless of where the trade occurred.

There are two consolidated tape feeds in the US. Tape A covers NYSE-listed securities, Tape B covers securities listed on regional exchanges such as NYSE American and NYSE Arca, and Tape C covers NASDAQ-listed securities. Tapes A and B are administered by the Consolidated Tape Association (CTA), while Tape C is governed by the UTP Plan. Together, these feeds cover essentially all US-listed equities.

The consolidated tape serves multiple functions. It provides price discovery by ensuring that all market participants can observe where and at what price stocks are trading. It enables regulatory surveillance — the SEC and FINRA use tape data to detect manipulation, insider trading, and execution quality violations. It also underpins index calculations, ETF pricing, and portfolio valuation across the financial industry.

Market data revenue is a contentious issue in US market structure. Exchanges charge significant fees for access to their proprietary data feeds, which transmit quote and trade information faster and with more depth than the consolidated tape. Institutional participants who require sub-millisecond latency subscribe to these proprietary feeds. Retail investors and smaller brokers typically rely on the consolidated tape, which is cheaper but slightly slower.

The SEC overhauled the governance of the consolidated tape in 2020 and 2021, expanding the committee that sets data fees to include broker-dealers and buy-side participants alongside the exchanges, and mandating inclusion of odd-lot quote information in consolidated market data for the first time.