ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 31, 1996 TAG: 9601310038
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
The Justice Department is urging major reform of the Nasdaq stock market to restrain dealers' ``willingness and ability to collude.''
The Justice Department comments, in an 11-page letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission released Tuesday, come as the agency's antitrust division continues an extensive investigation of Nasdaq, the nation's second-largest stock market.
The Justice Department has said little about its 1 1/2-year investigation, but the letter to the SEC represents some of its most extensive public observations about competition on Nasdaq, a market without a trading floor that links dealers by a computer network.
Finance Professor David Whitcomb of Rutgers University in New Jersey said it was ``highly significant'' that dealer collusion was mentioned in the letter.
Defense attorneys for major Wall Street firms targeted by the investigation played down the letter's significance.
Major Nasdaq dealers, known as market makers, are under investigation for possible price-fixing.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 32 linesby CNB