SECURITIES

Merrill Lynch Changes Policy on Small-Investor Stock Orders: The New York-based brokerage, the nation’s largest, will no longer automatically route certain small-investor orders in New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks to the Pacific and Boston stock exchanges, where it has dealer operations. Instead, it will direct all its orders to a stock’s primary market, meaning the market in which the stock is listed. The new arrangement will force Merrill Lynch & Co. to give up profit it makes from the current setup and will ensure that investors get better prices. Under pressure from the Securities and Exchange Commission, brokerage firms are re-evaluating how they execute the trades of small investors.