U.S. SEC finds trading abuses in massive data review

By Suzanne Barlyn

(Reuters) - A data-mining effort by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has helped it uncover a "wide range" of trading abuses at securities firms, SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White said in a speech on Tuesday.

The findings - which include inadequate supervision, rapid trading to gin up commissions, and unsuitable advice - are the result of beefed up technology that enables the agency to analyze large amounts of data from the securities industry, White said at the National Society of Compliance Professionals' annual meeting in Washington.

Lawyers and compliance executives said the findings could lead to stepped up enforcement from the SEC.

"I wouldn't be surprised if something was in the pipeline," said Amy Lynch, president of Frontline Compliance in Leesburg, Virginia.

White said an SEC unit that specializes in analyzing data downloads all transactions cleared by a brokerage or clearing firm from a recent period.

In one such recently completed exam, the team collected and analyzed more than 400 million transactions. White expects an upcoming exam to analyze twice as many.

The SEC does not disclose its plans for enforcement actions. A spokesman was not immediately available to comment.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; editing by Linda Stern and Prudence Crowther)