Self-Regulatory Organizations; MIAX PEARL, LLC; Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of a Proposed Rule Change To Amend the MIAX Pearl Equities Fee Schedule To Amend the Fees for Ports

<NOTICE> SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION <DEPDOC>[Release No. 34-103150; File No. SR-PEARL-2025-24]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Self-Regulatory Organizations; MIAX PEARL, LLC; Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of a Proposed Rule Change To Amend the MIAX Pearl Equities Fee Schedule To Amend the Fees for Ports</SUBJECT> <DATE>May 29, 2025.</DATE> Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Act”), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and Rule 19b-4 thereunder, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> notice is hereby given that on May 22, 2025, MIAX PEARL, LLC (“MIAX Pearl” or “Exchange”) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) a proposed rule change as described in Items I, II, and III below, which Items have been prepared by the Exchange. The Commission is publishing this notice to solicit comments on the proposed rule change from interested persons. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  17 CFR 240.19b-4. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Terms of Substance of the Proposed Rule Change</HD> The Exchange proposes to amend the fee schedule (the “Fee Schedule”) applicable to the Exchange's equities trading platform (“MIAX Pearl Equities”  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> ) to amend the fees for three types of ports, FIX, MEO, and FXD, each of which are described below. Specifically, the Exchange proposes to eliminate the tiered pricing structure by no longer providing a certain number of FIX and MEO ports for free and subject each purchased FIX and MEO port to the same fee. Likewise, the Exchange proposes to no longer provide all FXD ports for free and subject each purchased FXD port to the same fee as the Exchange charges for each FIX and MEO port. As a result of these changes, the Exchange also proposes to amend the Fee Schedule to remove the defined term “Waiver Period”  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> as there will no longer be any fees subject to a Waiver Period upon the effectiveness of this filing. As described more fully below, the proposed fees described herein for each FIX, MEO and FXD port are comparable to, or lower than, the fees charged by other exchanges for similar port connectivity. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  All references to the “Exchange” in this filing refer to MIAX Pearl Options. Any references to the equities trading facility of MIAX PEARL, LLC will specifically be referred to as “MIAX Pearl Equities.” </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The term “Waiver Period” means, for each applicable fee, the period of time from the initial effective date of the MIAX Pearl Equities Fee Schedule until such time that MIAX Pearl has an effective fee filing establishing the applicable fee. MIAX Pearl Equities will issue a Regulatory Circular announcing the establishment of an applicable fee that was subject to a Waiver Period at least fifteen (15) days prior to the termination of the Waiver Period and effective date of any such applicable fee. <E T="03">See</E> the Definitions section of the Fee Schedule. </FTNT> The text of the proposed rule change is available on the Exchange's website at <E T="03">https://www.miaxglobal.com/markets/us-options/pearl-options/rule-filings</E> at MIAX Pearl's principal office, and at the Commission's Public Reference Room. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change</HD> In its filing with the Commission, the Exchange included statements concerning the purpose of and basis for the proposed rule change and discussed any comments it received on the proposed rule change. The text of these statements may be examined at the places specified in Item IV below. The Exchange has prepared summaries, set forth in sections A, B, and C below, of the most significant aspects of such statements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Purpose</HD> The Exchange proposes to amend the fees for three types of ports, FIX, MEO, and FXD, each of which are described below. Specifically, the Exchange proposes to eliminate the tiered pricing structure by no longer providing a certain number of FIX and MEO ports for free and subject each purchased FIX and MEO port to the same fee. Likewise, the Exchange also proposes to no longer provide all FXD ports for free and subject each purchased FXD port to the same fee as each FIX and MEO port. As a result of these changes, the Exchange also proposes to amend the Fee Schedule to remove the defined term “Waiver Period” as there will no longer be any fees subject to a Waiver Period upon the effectiveness of this filing. As described more fully below, the proposed fees described herein for each FIX, MEO and FXD port are comparable to, or lower than, the fees charged by other exchanges for similar port connectivity. The Exchange offers Equity Members  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> three types of ports: (i) FIX ports;  and (iii) FXD ports. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> FIX ports allow Equity Members to send orders and other messages using the FIX Order Interface. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> The FIX Order Interface is a gateway connection to the Exchange and allows Equity Members to use the industry standard FIX protocol with MIAX Pearl Equities specific extensions for the transmission of orders and other messages to and from the Exchange. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> The FIX Order Interface validates incoming orders and forwards them to the appropriate matching engine. Executions and cancellation notifications are provided through each FIX Order Interface to Equity Members through their FIX ports. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  The term “Equity Member” means a Member authorized by the Exchange to transact business on MIAX PEARL Equities. <E T="03">See</E> Exchange Rule 1901. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  The term “FIX Port” means a FIX port that allows Equity Members to send orders and other messages using the FIX protocol (also referred to as the FIX Order Interface, defined herein). <E T="03">See</E> the Definitions section of the Fee Schedule. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> the Definitions section of the Fee Schedule. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  The term “FIX Drop Port” or “FXD” means a messaging interface that provides real-time order activities of firms' MEO and FOI orders. <E T="03">See</E> the Definitions section of the Fee Schedule. Standard FIX Drop ports only send trade information and include Execution Reports and Trade Cancel/Correct messages. <E T="03">See</E> MIAX Pearl Equities Exchange User Manual, updated January 2025, at page 10, <E T="03">available at https://www.miaxglobal.com/miax_pearl_equities_user_manual_jan_2025.pdf</E> (the “User Manual”). FIX Order by Order Drop ports send all order activities, including all Execution Reports, Trade Cancel/Correct messages, and optionally order rejects. <E T="03">Id.</E> The term “Equities Market Maker” shall mean an Equity Member that acts as a Market Maker in equity securities, pursuant to Chapter XXVI of the Exchange's Rules. <E T="03">See</E> Exchange Rule 1901. The term “Equities Order Entry Firm”, “Order Entry Firm”, or “OEF”, shall mean those Equity Members representing orders as agent on MIAX Pearl Equities and those non-Equity Market Maker Members conducting proprietary trading. <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> the Definition section of the Fee Schedule. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> MIAX Pearl Equities FAQ, modified February 2025, at page 8, <E T="03">available at https://www.miaxglobal.com/miax_pearl_equities_faq_feb_2025.pdf</E> (the “MIAX Pearl Equities FAQ”). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">See id.</E> </FTNT> MEO ports provide Equity Members with order entry capabilities to all Exchange matching engines using the Exchange's proprietary binary MEO Interface protocol. The MEO Interface will route an order to the appropriate matching engine based on the security. Equity Members have flexibility in setting up MEO ports to cater to their architecture. <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> MIAX Pearl Equities FAQ, <E T="03">supra</E> note 10. </FTNT> FXD ports allow Equity Members and clearing firms to receive real-time order activities of firms' orders over the MEO and FOI Interfaces. <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> The Exchange offers two types of FXD ports: (1) Standard FIX Drop port; and (2) FIX Order by Order Drop port. <SU>14</SU> <FTREF/> Standard FIX Drop ports will only send trade information, including execution reports and trade cancel/correct messages. FIX Order by Order Drop ports will send all order activities including execution reports, trade cancel/correct messages, and optionally order rejects. <SU>15</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>13</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> the Definitions section of the Fee Schedule. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>14</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> MIAX Pearl Equities FAQ, <E T="03">supra</E> note 10, at page 9. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>15</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> The Exchange currently provides the first five (5) FIX and MEO ports, respectively, for free and all FXD ports for free. The Exchange charges the following separate monthly fees for FIX and MEO ports: $450 per port per month for the 6th port and for each port thereafter utilized by an Equity Member. FIX and MEO Ports are counted separately for the tiers in the monthly Port Fee Table in section 2)d) of the Fee Schedule. As a new exchange entrant, the Exchange chose to offer a limited number of FIX, MEO, and FXD ports for free to encourage market participants to trade on the Exchange and experience, among things, the quality of the Exchange's technology and trading function ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 36k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━