Regular-Way Trade - RW

For centuries, the Church has condemned anything but (one 't') the regular way. But then some wise guy posited a question about “anything but.”

So then some wise Torah scribe added an extra letter ‘t’ there and well, everything was a mess and well, “regular way” just stopped really being a Thing. Anyway, in Financeland, Regular Way simply describes a security trade. When trades settle regular way, it means that they follow the normal T+3, T+5, T+whatever that’s accorded whatever trade it is they’re making.

A corporate debt trade? 3 days. "T plus three." Regular Way would imply that that corporate debt will settle in the regular three-day time period.

A foreign exchange trade for a stock? That’s two days. T+2. Regular way.

The basic idea is there are so many trades now that happen in a non-regular way, because of some weird restriction or government filing requirement or other global event that precluded things going, uh, au natural, that noting when something trades regular way, actually has become a Thing.

And if you’re ever having trouble going regular way, may we recommend some Metamucil. Should fix you right up.