Executives from the nation’s various trading venues convened are holding meetings in Washington today to devise new rules that aim to prevent the dramatic 1,000-point drop in the Dow that shocked the markets last week.

Early reports from the meeting indicate that exchanges, including NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq, are planning to institute uniform circuit breaker rules that slow trading during volatile market swings. The rules are meant to apply across most major trading systems, but it’s unclear how regulators can impose the rules on banks’ internal order flow.Regulators have said that last week’s sudden drop in the markets was most likely  caused by circuit breakers that were triggered on the NYSE, which drove trades onto other markets where there is less liquidity.

From the Associated Press:

“With the huge changes in the market we need again to look at market structure,” said Rick Ketchum, CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a private self-regulatory group that oversees the Nasdaq.

Ketchum said firms with direct market access need safety shut-off valves so they don’t “continuously feed in orders” after market drops and should consider the risk of rapid liquidity problems in fast-moving markets.

“There need to be shock absorbers in the market,” Ketchum said. “We can’t be in this position of redesigning what happens in trades and making decisions in what trades should be broken with respect to markets that go close to zero. That isn’t an acceptable place.”

Comments (21)

  1. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 2:25 PM

    Emergency shut-offs are for noobs

    -BP Oil rig manager

  2. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 2:31 PM

    chirp, chirp

  3. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 2:42 PM

    1- ftw

  4. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 2:50 PM

    Jesus molested me in the back of a van.

  5. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 2:56 PM

    SHUT DOWN ON DOWN DAYS DOW ONLY ALLOWED TO GO UP

  6. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 3:13 PM

    So the nubs at the SEC and FINRA are finally waking up from thier decade long sleep…..

  7. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 3:14 PM

    @5 Nice.

  8. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 3:18 PM

    this is collusion, so if you bob barry’s knob by being in favor or financial reform of course you can get away with it

  9. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 3:26 PM

    who’s bob barry?

  10. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 3:31 PM

    @9 if you suck obama’s dick you can do whatever you want

  11. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 3:32 PM

    3 20-handle drops = much better than 60-handles in 10 min.

    ~Relieved Trader with a fat, slow finger

  12. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 3:52 PM

    I think I know how the speed bumps are gonna work:

    NYSE > Error

    You are trading stocks too quickly. Slow down.

    - WordPress IT guy

  13. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 3:56 PM

    @12 LOLZ

  14. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 4:07 PM

    this was a lacklustre effort

  15. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 4:10 PM

    10- nice sense of humor you got there. Dad? Is that you?

  16. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 4:10 PM

    Nice. You just know that this is going to hit some unprepared quant fund in some weird manner, leading to even more vol and even more convoluted “speed bumps”. Hoorah for knee jerk responses.
    @12 FTW, we should get DB IT to work on a solution.

  17. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 4:19 PM

    #9 is definitely not the joke briefer

  18. Posted by CoveredLong | May 10, 2010 at 4:23 PM

    I’ve got speedbumps Greg, can you milk me?

    -Road by a schoolzone

  19. Posted by Jimmy | May 10, 2010 at 5:51 PM

    Speed bumps = absolutely stupid

    Learn how to trade. 75% of busted trades ETFs probably stop orders put in by pikers. The people who bought shares at a penny deserve to keep it.

  20. Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2010 at 8:19 PM

    Market orders are for suckers.
    - LLoyd

  21. Posted by Anonymous | May 11, 2010 at 7:44 AM

    ok i wont trade so fast next time, ill just put in bigger slower orders.

    The dyslexic guy who cant see the difference between B and M

Leave a comment

You can log in with your account or comment as a guest below.