Federal stock market regulators have imposed new rules to protect small investors using a Nasdaq electronic stock market trading system designed for them.
But maverick stock traders, who oppose the change - claiming it discriminates against them and their customers - say they'll challenge the temporary rules change in court.The Securities and Exchange Commission voted Wednesday to allow the National Association of Securities Dealers, which operates Nasdaq, to impose the changes starting Jan. 7. It's only a a year-long pilot program, however.
Nasdaq is a computer-run system where authorized dealers trade for investors. Unlike stock exchanges, there is no central trading floor and stock prices do not fluctuate with demand. Instead, dealers trade based on current bids to buy stock and offers to sell by specialist traders known as "market makers."
Nasdaq's Small Order Execution System or SOES, which allows individual investors' orders to be completed by computer - rather than by telephone - was established in 1984 and made mandatory for Nasdaq market makers after the 1987 market crash. The aim was to assure continuous access to the marketplace for small investors, even in times of market crisis.
But the NASD has complained that maverick traders, known in the market as "SOES bandits," were using the SOES system for short-term trading rather than investing. NASD officials charged the trading pros were exploiting and disrupting the SOES system by sending repeated orders to market makers in rapid succession.
When stock prices change quickly, these professionals trade large amounts of stock before market makers can react and adjust the advertised prices at which they will buy or sell, locking in a profit, the NASD charged.
The maverick forces are fighting to win permanent access to SOES for their customers and themselves.
They sued in federal court to block a previous NASD rule, approved by the SEC, that prohibiting professional trading accounts from using SOES.
The NASD and the SEC revoked those rules earlier this month after a federal appeals court in Washington asked the SEC to reexamine them.
The new rule, said SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr., "addresses trading activity rather than the status of an individual trader's account. In that regard, the rule is a more narrowly focused attempt to solve the NASD's concerns than the original proposal."
Changes imposed by the modified rule include:
- Decreasing the maximum order size that can use SOES from 1,000 shares to 500 shares.
- Providing an automated quotation update system.
- Prohibiting the use of SOES to transact a short sale, a speculative trading strategy by investors who think a company's stock price is going to drop.
But All-Tech Investment group, one of the maverick firms the SEC refers to as SOES activists, said it would immediately challenge the rules, which it said would "severely curtail use" of SOES.
The Suffern, N.Y.-based firm maintained in a statement issued after the SEC vote that "the SEC has never adequately demonstrated the need for any restrictions on the use of SOES."
"We use SOES to execute trades for our customers because that gives them the best chance of getting their trades executed at the price advertised by the market maker," said All-Tech Chairman Harvey Houtkin.