Series 14 Markets and Operations Compliance

Learn the sales-practice, trading-practice, SEC-rule, and surveillance topics that frame Series 14 market-operations compliance.

The second Series 14 chapter moves into market conduct and trading operations. A compliance officer has to understand how orders, routing, auctions, surveillance, and broader SEC trading rules create regulatory obligations for the firm. This chapter matters because compliance is not just a back-office function. It has to operate inside the mechanics of the market.

Read this chapter as the trading-and-surveillance layer of the firm. Start with sales-practice controls, then move through trading mechanics and market rules, and finish with the SEC-rule and surveillance concepts that help the firm detect manipulation, misuse of information, or execution failures.

What this chapter should help you do

SkillExam use
Recognize market-conduct riskSpot manipulation, execution, routing, surveillance, and trading-practice facts.
Tie operations to compliance controlsDecide what exception review, record, escalation, or remediation is required.
Apply SEC and FINRA rule directionUse the rule framework to identify the risk, not to memorize isolated citations.
Protect market integrityChoose answers that preserve evidence, contain risk, and document the control response.

Series 14 section lessons

Use these section lessons as the main reading path for this Series 14 function. They connect compliance-officer judgment to exact tested controls, escalation points, records, and remediation evidence.

In this section

  • Sales, Trading Practices and Surveillance Framework
    Study Series 14 market-operations framework topics, including listed and OTC market structure, agency and principal capacity, market makers, risk-based surveillance, new trading venues, alert prioritization, evidence standards, and escalation paths.
  • Sales Practices
    Study Series 14 sales-practice controls, including fair conduct, fair pricing, IPO allocation restrictions, front-running, research-related trading, best execution evidence, trading ahead, and corrective action.
  • Trading Practices
    Study Series 14 trading-practice controls, including confirmations, short-sale delivery and close-outs, trade reporting, clearly erroneous trades, order handling, capacity coding, reconciliations, and trade-error controls.
  • SEC Rule Framework for Trading Activity
    Study Series 14 SEC trading rule framework topics, including Rule 10b-5, Section 16(b), Rule 10b-18, Rule 15c2-11, Regulation M, Regulation NMS, Regulation SHO, and cross-rule escalation.
  • Surveillance Program Design and Governance
    Study Series 14 surveillance program design and governance, including manipulation and insider-trading objectives, OTC reporting data, floor-trading and penny-stock controls, alert triage, case closure evidence, regulatory request files, model governance, trend metrics, and U.S. Treasury auction monitoring.
Revised on Friday, May 29, 2026