SEC’s Levitt Pushes Idea of Unified Market

The nation’s top securities regulator may be stepping up his campaign to get increasingly fragmented trading systems to link up, for investors’ benefit.

In a speech Monday, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt said the SEC will issue a preliminary proposal to form a central national stock market by expanding the electronic links among competing markets.

The proposal will ask the securities industry to comment on centralizing the display and trading of many customer orders, Levitt said.

This proposal builds on Levitt’s request to the securities industry last month to consider creating links among markets for so-called limit orders, or customer stock orders at specified prices.

The market has become increasingly fragmented in recent years with the growth of electronic trading networks that compete with the NYSE and Nasdaq by attempting to match buyers and sellers directly. If such systems link with one another and with the NYSE and Nasdaq, investors would have a better chance at finding others for the flip side of the trade. But for competitive reasons, the securities industry has not been quick to embrace Levitt’s idea.