Pacific System Delayed Again

A much-heralded new stock-trading system, devised by OptiMark Technologies and scheduled to launch in September at the Pacific Exchange, is being delayed again--this time until early January, backers said Monday.

The system is designed to let big investors such as pension funds trade directly and anonymously with one another via Los Angeles-based Pacific’s system.

The second delay--it was first postponed until late October--is because testing is taking longer than expected, officials said.

“It’s like when we had problems with our nation’s space program and people said we’d never get to the moon,” said Bill Lupien, chairman of Durango, Colo.-based OptiMark. “We’ll get there. I’m confident we will be up and running--we’ve spent $80 million to build this and we want to do it right.”

The later start date has nothing to do with a merger deal between the Pacific and the Chicago Board Options Exchange, officials said.