Late trading to come soon!
See: dailynews.yahoo.com
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Evening stock market trading could arrive in the United States as early as this summer for stocks on the Nasdaq Stock Market, officials at the nation's second-largest stock market said Monday.
If approved, investors could trade stocks listed on Nasdaq, home of technology headliners like Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news), for four extra hours in a late session that could start at 5:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time, a Nasdaq spokesman said.
Nasdaq president Alfred Berkeley said Nasdaq's Quality of Markets Committee, made up of market makers, institutional and retail investors, backs the idea and last week formed a subcommittee to look at evening trading and draft a proposal for the board's May 27 meeting.
The proposal could be rejected or sent back for more information by the board of the National Association of Securities Dealers, the parent of Nasdaq and the American Stock Exchange.
But if approved, and if the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission quickly signed off on it, late session trading ''conceivably'' could begin this summer, a Nasdaq spokesman said.
Berkeley said the NASD would ask the SEC for expedited approval so kinks could be worked out in a pilot program.
The move to a longer trading day is firmly in place on Wall Street, especially with the bulge in trading by Internet investors who say they want to trade long beyond the traditional hours. Berkeley said he expects a 24-hour trading day at some point, with Nasdaq linked to an alternative trading system.
New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso said in December the NYSE was considering a morning session, for trading European stocks, as well as a late session. Last Friday, he said his exchange could be open for nearly 20 hours a day within two years.
The NYSE is also seeking to link with an alternative trading system to find a way to trade Nasdaq-listed stocks.
Berkeley said while everyone on the committee favored late trading, there was some grumbling over the prospects of a morning session.
''...The question of when to start in the morning was a little bit more contentious, as people really wondered whether Americans wanted to trade early in the morning,'' he told Reuters in Washington, D.C.
The fact that many Nasdaq companies are from California, three hours behind New York time, makes the prospect of an even earlier session daunting to traders who already arise at the crack of dawn to greet New York's opening bell.
Berkeley acknowledged that any decision could have a tremendous ripple effect, especially on small firms that might suffer if they had to pay extra to staff a late session.
''The policy issue here is: is it too expensive for the small firms to do this, and if it is, will we drive them out of the business?''
If trading were to move to 24 hours, he said one idea would be to have only limit orders, no market orders. That would protect investors from having to pay extremely different prices in cases where there were few buy or sell quotes in the wee hours.
Change is coming on a number of fronts for the exchanges, which are increasingly competing on a global basis. Not only are both considering pairing up with new trading systems, but the NASD is also considering a dramatic change in the way it is structured, including the possible launch of an initial public offering.
An NASD panel has hired Salomon Smith Barney to analyze a number of options, including an IPO. Like the change in trading hours, a change in structure at the NASD would require regulatory approvals. |
