SEC Approves Nasdaq Stock Market’s Volatility Trading Curbs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved Nasdaq Stock Market’s request to set trading curbs for individual stocks, adding to the market-wide circuit breakers already in place.

The measure, which will halt trading on the exchange for a minute if a stock’s price rises or falls more than a set threshold over a 30-second period, aims to curtail “abrupt and significant” price movements resulting from potentially aberrant volatility, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. told the SEC in June. Circuit breakers for individual securities introduced in June provide coordinated trading halts across all markets when prices move 10 percent over a five-minute period.