The NFA announced that its annual meeting will be held on February 19, 2015 at 11:00 a.m. See: Notice to Members I-15-13.

Mercatus scholars Eli Dourado and Andrea Castillo published an article, titled "Federal Cybersecurity Breaches Mount Despite Increased Spending," that uses data from the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office ("GAO") to compare the dollar amount of federal cybersecurity spending to the number of information security incidents from 2006 to 2013. Recently, President Obama announced cybersecurity reform proposals that included an increase in federal funding for cybersecurity and legislative changes to encourage private organizations to share sensitive security

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") Governor Jerome H. Powell spoke at the Brookings Institution regarding the Fair and Effective Markets Review (the "Review"), as well as issues involving the fixed-income, currency and commodities ("FICC") markets in the United States. According to Governor Powell, the Review is designed to look carefully at markets and firms, and to investigate whether structural vulnerabilities or incentives for bad conduct exist and should be addressed. Governor Powell stated that the FRB strongly encourages the reform of compensation practices at

FINRA issued an information notice to announce a decrease in the Exchange Act Section 31 fee rate for specified securities transactions on the exchanges and in the over-the-counter markets. The decrease will become effective on February 14, 2015. The fee's current rate of $22.10 per million dollars in transactions will be decreased to the new rate of $18.40 per million dollars in transactions. See: FINRA Information Notice.

CME Group published a white paper, titled "Clearing – Balancing CCP and Member Contributions with Exposures," that details its position on a variety of issues facing central counterparty clearinghouses ("CCPs"). Specifically, the paper considers the question of how much "skin in the game" CCPs should contribute to a market's financial safeguards. In the opinion of CME Group, the "skin in the game requirements" must be developed according to principles that incentivize market participants to manage the risks they create. Lofchie Comment: The recent healthy debate over the safety (or not) of