Nasdaq's Overseers Weigh New Rules Covering Trades: Proposals Aimed ...
Facing two investigations by federal agencies and dozens of lawsuits from disgruntled investors, the Nasdaq stock market today is scheduled to approve new rules intended to ensure that small investors are treated fairly.</br></br>The reforms are supposed to answer complaints that individual investors buying and selling Nasdaq stocks sometimes do not get as good prices as big traders and stock market professionals.</br></br>For more than a year, the Securities and Exchange Commission has been pressuring the National Association of Securities Dealers, which runs Nasdaq, to improve the way it handles orders from investors who want to trade at a specific price. Investors have complained that they</br></br>The NASD came up with a plan for revamping its handling of transactions at specified pricesÛÓknown as limit ordersÛÓearlier this year, but withdrew it after receiving informal signals that SEC officials believed it did not'go far enough.</br></br>The SEC is expected to scrutinize the new proposal, which will be presented to the NASD board at Nasdaq headquarters in Washington. Some industry sources speculated that the latest proposal also will not satisfy the SECÛªs concerns about the operations of the booming Nasdaq market.