Visualizations for sense-making in financial market regulation

Electronic markets and automated trading have resulted in a drastic increase in the quantity and complexity of regulatory data. Regulatory analysis now includes detailed analysis of all messaging and communications related to electronic limit order books. New order types, intra-market behavior and other exchange functionality further complicate analysis. Data visualizations have proven to be a fundamental tool for building intuition and enabling exploratory data analysis in many fields. In this paper, we propose the incorporation of visualizations in the workflow of multiple financial regulatory roles, including market surveillance, enforcement, and academic research.