Nasdaq Gets OK to Use OptiMark Trade System

The Securities and Exchange Commission gave the Nasdaq Stock Market permission Thursday to use OptiMark Technologies’ electronic trading system to match investors’ buy and sell orders, Nasdaq said.

The market, the nation’s second-largest after the New York Stock Exchange, will begin using the system to trade 10 Nasdaq stocks, including Dell Computer, Apple Computer and Starbucks, on Oct. 11. After two weeks, securities from the full Nasdaq 100 index of major stocks will be available to be traded through OptiMark, Nasdaq said.

By the end of the year, the 250 most active stocks--which represent 70% of Nasdaq trading volume--will be tradable via OptiMark, OptiMark Chief Executive Philip Riese said.

The OptiMark system lets institutional investors use a computer system to express preferences for trades of stocks at different prices and quantities.

It’s designed to let investors trade large blocks of stocks with each other, with complete anonymity. By contrast, when investors use a broker they raise the risk that news of their buy or sell interest might leak into the market and affect the stock’s price before a trade is completed.

OptiMark, a privately held company based in Jersey City, N.J., already operates on the Pacific Exchange.