FINRA issued an Information Notice reminding firms of the exercise cut-off time for weekly options expiring on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The cut-off time will be modified because the national options exchanges will close at 1:00 p.m., Eastern Time, on Friday November 28, 2014. The notice stated that options holders must make their final decision to exercise or not exercise options expiring on November 28, 2014 by 2:30 p.m., Eastern Time. Se e: FINRA Information Notice.

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") requested public comment on the application of enhanced prudential standards and reporting requirements to General Electric Capital Corporation ("GECC"), a non-bank financial company that the Financial Stability Oversight Council ("FSOC") has determined should be supervised by the FRB. The proposed enhanced prudential standards are similar to those that are applied to large bank holding companies, and include requirements regarding risk-based and leverage capital, capital planning, stress testing, liquidity, and risk management

The Futures Industry Association ("FIA") issued an updated version of its guide to rules and regulations relating to customer fund protections in the United States. The guide, which was first issued in February 2012, provides futures commission merchants and customers with information about the relevant provisions of the CEA and the rules of the CFTC. The latest version of the guide has been updated to reflect several of the CFTC's enhanced customer protection rules that have come into effect since May 2014 (when the third version of the guide was released). Additionally, this version takes

The CFTC Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (the "Division") issued a no-action letter providing relief from CTA registration for family offices in connection with the advisory services they offer to a "family client," as defined in Advisers Act Rule 202(a)(11)(G)-1(d)(4). To receive relief, a family office must submit a claim to the Division and remain in compliance with the exclusion for family offices from the definition of "investment adviser," as adopted by the SEC in 2011. The relief granted to family offices from CTA registration is similar to that which was granted to

Three FINRA-proposed rules regarding (i) debt research, (ii) research analysts and (iii) research reports were published in the Federal Register. The FINRA proposal to adopt FINRA Rule 2242 ("Debt Research Analysts and Debt Research Reports") would address conflicts of interest relating to the publication and distribution of debt research reports. The proposed debt research rule is based on FINRA's existing equity research rule, NASD Rule 2711 ("Research Analysts and Research Reports"), but contains important modifications that FINRA considers necessary to reflect the differences between the