What little financial privacy you have when trading stocks is about to get even smaller next month. When you make a stock trade, your broker already is required by the Bank Secrecy Act to maintain records of it, monitor your trading activity, and report any suspicion of illegal activity to the federal government. But, starting in March, your broker will be required to directly report all of your trades, including your personal information, to a massive government database. If the Bank Secrecy Act concerns you—and even if it doesn't—just wait until you hear about the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT).
The Consolidated Audit Trail is intended to collect and accurately identify every order, cancellation, modification, and trade execution for all exchange-listed equities and options across all U.S. markets, allowing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to track orders and identify who made them.
