What is OATS?
OATS stands for Order Audit Trail System It allows NASD to recreate events in the life cycle of an investor s order and more completely monitor the trading practices of brokerage firms. Specifically, OATS requires that all events relating to a trade are recorded with an accurate time stamp. The rules require each FINRA member to synchronize its business clocks used for purposes of recording the date and time of any order related event, with reference to the NIST time source (the “Atomic Clock”), and maintain and document the synchronization of business clocks on a regular basis.
