OTC Equity Securities Symbol Categorization Files

FINRA publishes a file of which OTC Equity Securities symbols are included in each OTC Equity category for the purposes of Rule 6470 reporting. The categorization file is a pipe delimited text file where the file name denotes the year and the quarter for which the symbol categorization applies. FINRA will make the quarterly symbol categorization file available prior to the first day of each quarter for use during the entirety of the following quarter.

The first row of the categorization file is a header row that provides the following attribute names:

• issueSymbol –OTC Equity Security symbol based on FINRA’s OTC Equity Securities Symbol Directory
• issueName – name of the OTC Equity Security.
• issueCategory –applicable category of the OTC Equity Security for disclosure of order routing information

The symbol categorization file categorizes the OTC equity securities as:

• DMSTC - Domestic OTC Equity Securities
• ADR_FRGN - American Depository Receipts and foreign ordinaries that are OTC Equity Securities; or
• CA_LSTD - Canadian-listed securities trading in the United States as OTC Equity Securities