SEC proposes limiting public releases to one-month

In Federal Register Vol. 91, No. 35, issued February 23, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule which would revise Form N-PORT reporting for certain registered investment companies – registered open-end funds, registered closed-end funds, and exchange-traded funds organized as unit investment trusts – by extending the monthly filing deadline from 30 days to 45 days after month-end, along with several other changes.

Additionally, the SEC rule proposed on February 23 would restore the quarterly publication frequency, under which only third-month data in a fund’s fiscal quarter is made public, rather than making each month public.

The SEC also proposes to streamline or remove certain items and sub-items on Form N-PORT, including eliminating names rule-related reporting on Form N-PORT and removing certain reporting relating to non-derivatives’ payoff profiles, convertible securities metrics, and an explanation for multiple liquidity classifications, while adjusting portfolio risk metrics thresholds and simplifying certain return reporting. Separately, the SEC proposes changes for multiple-class funds with ETF share classes to require separate reporting of the ETF class’s net assets and flows, and it would require additional identifying information, including ticker symbols and certain class-level identifiers, where applicable.

The SEC’s release also notes that the effective and compliance dates for the 2024 Form N-PORT amendments were previously delayed, and that the proposal would align certain 2024 amendments not superseded by this rulemaking with the effective and compliance dates of any final amendments adopted in this release; however, the proposal does not itself provide a final implementation date beyond the described transition framework, which remains contingent on SEC adoption following the comment process.