Nasdaq Protests SEC Deadline on Listings

The Nasdaq Stock Market said it can’t meet the Securities and Exchange Commission’s deadline for complying with new rules on the way it lists stock prices. Meeting the SEC’s Jan. 10 deadline requires changes in Nasdaq’s trading system that can’t be completed until the second quarter of 1997 at the earliest, Nasdaq President Alfred Berkeley said in a letter to Richard Lindsey, SEC director of market regulation. “We are in the process of formulating formal guidance that will respond to the issues raised in the letter,” SEC spokesman John Heine said. The rules would force the nation’s stock markets to display quotes from competing electronic trading systems.