Block trade tiers
On this page, ASIC publishes its allocation of equity market products to the pre-trade transparency block trade tiers.
ASIC will determine, on a quarterly basis, the equity market products allocated to the block trade tiers and publish them on this webpage.
Background and procedure
Rule 6.1.1 of the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (Securities Markets) 2017 requires that market participants must not enter into a transaction for an equity market product or CGS depository interest unless the transaction is entered into by matching of a pre-trade transparent order on an order book.
Rule 6.1.2 (Securities Markets) requires a market operator to make available pre-trade information.
There are a number of exceptions to these rules, including Rule 6.2.1 (Securities Markets). This exception allows a transaction to be executed without pre-trade transparency where the consideration for the transaction is not less than:
- $1 million or more for Tier 1 equity market products;
- $500,000 or more for Tier 2 equity market products; and
- $200,000 or more for Tier 3 equity market products and CGS depository interests.
As required by Rule 6.2.1 (Securities Markets), ASIC will determine the tier 1 equity market products and tier 2 equity market products and register the determination on the Federal Register of Legislation (www.legislation.gov.au). ASIC will perform this calculation quarterly and the determination will be registered in the week commencing on the first Monday of each March, June, September and December. The determination will take effect on the 20th business day after the Friday following the first Monday of each March, June, September and December. If the Friday is a public holiday, the determination will be registered on the next business day. In calculating the 20 business days, the day of registration, Saturdays, Sundays, New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are not included. ASIC will also publish the equity market products that fall within each tier on this page.
We will publish a CSV file with the equity market products determined to be tier 1 equity market products and tier 2 equity market products, including the stock code and company name.
Equity market products not listed in the CSV file are tier 3 equity market products.
The file will be saved with the naming convention: mir-sm-621-block-trade-tiers-yyyymmdd.csv.
Changes to tier 1 equity market products and tier 2 equity market products will be published in a separate CSV file. This file will be saved with the following naming convention: mir-sm-621-block-trade-tiers-yyyymmdd-changes-from-previous-quarter.csv.
New products and tier changes during a period (e.g. listings, corporate actions, product code change)
- A new equity market product (e.g. resulting from a company listing or a corporate action) will be considered a tier 3 equity market product until the next quarterly ADV calculation where it may be determined to be tier 1 equity market product or tier 2 equity market product. Where a product has changed its name or code only, the industry should treat the equity market product’s block trade tier as unchanged until the next quarterly ADV calculation and determination comes into effect.
- In exceptional circumstances where there is a new equity listing or corporate action that is so significant that S&P adds it to the S&P/ASX 200 during a period, ASIC will determine that it be a tier 1 equity market product. If possible, ASIC will replace the following block tier CSV files prior to the date of the scheduled listing or corporate action, and issue a special notification on our website to inform the industry of the new files.
Download files
Published 6 September 2024, effective 4 October 2024