SEC to Propose New Stock Trading Rules: Changes Could Save Investors Millions on Nasdaq Transact]
The Securities and Exchange Commission will propose a package of new stock trading rules tomorrow that could save Nasdaq stock market investors millions of dollars a year by helping them get better prices when they buy and sell stocks.</br></br>The SEC proposals would force Nasdaq to change the way it handles orders from small investors and would for the first time give the general public access to Nasdaq computer systems that Wall Street firms use to trade stocks among themselves.</br></br>The board of the National Association of Securities Dealers last week issued its own plan for revamping the handling of small orders that NASD President Joseph R. Hardiman called "a major step forward... for individual investors.Û</br></br>But the NASD plan does not go as far as tile proposed SEC rules, and some of the NASDÛªs suggestions are a rehash of earlier ideas that already have been rejected by the SEC, securities industry sources said.</br></br>Nasdaq is the target of separate investigations by the SEC and the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, which are probing allegations that small investors suffer because Nasdaq's