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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scrapps who wrote (10166)	12/4/1997 1:11:00 PM
From: Moonray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22053

NYSE board to vote on raising triggers NEW YORK (AP) -- The tripwires that halt trading on the nation's stock markets during dramatic price drops may soon be raised. The New York Stock Exchange was considering at a board meeting today whether to triple the market decline that will activate the trigger, a source familiar with the matter said. The source demanded anonymity. NYSE officials declined to comment. Market declines of about 5 percent and 7 percent now halt trading, but critics say those can be triggered too easily. The NYSE said last month it may raise the declines to 10 percent and 20 percent. If the NYSE recommends a change, it could take another six months for it to be approved by federal regulators and be implemented. The tripwires were installed after the October 1987 stock market crash. They were designed to slow the plunge if there was another wrenching selloff. The circuit breakers now halt trading for a half-hour when the Dow Jones industrial average drops by 350 points and for an hour when the blue-chip indicator falls by 550 points to help calm investors. Critics have contended that those point drops are too small and might actually worsen market instability. Those concerns were heightened during the stock market plunge on Oct. 27 when they kicked in for the first time. When the restrictions were initiated, drops of about 12 percent and 19 percent triggered the halts. The drop on Oct. 27 was 7.2 percent. Many traders complained that the circuit breakers actually aggravated instead of braking panic selling as investors rushed to beat the cut-off. The changes being discussed would not only raise the threshold, but also widen the distance between the first and second triggers. Under the proposal, the point values for the 10 percent and 20 percent drops would be recalculated annually. Current market levels would put then at about 800 points for the first trigger and 1,600 for the second. o~~~ O