CONGRESS CONSIDERS DECIMAL STOCK PRICES.Byline: Marcy Gordon Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Some lawmakers are seeking to put the brakes on a movement to scrap the 200-year-old stock price fractions and require dollars-and-cents pricing for shares. A big newspaper, meanwhile, already has made the switch because readers wanted it, an editor told a House panel Thursday. In September, the San Francisco Chronicle The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young.[2] The paper grew along with San Francisco to become the largest circulation newspaper on the West Coast of the asked readers to tell the newspaper which way they preferred stock Stock shares that have preferential rights to dividends or to amounts distributable on liquidation, or to both, ahead of common shareholders. Preferred stock is given preference over common stock. Holders of preferred stock receive dividends at a fixed annual rate. prices to be expressed. Of 1,647 responses, 62 percent said ``they wanted to see prices listed in the plain terms of everyday life: dollars and cents,'' said Business Editor Lois Kazakoff. Proponents of decimal pricing insist it's time It's Time was a successful political campaign run by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) under Gough Whitlam at the 1972 election in Australia. Campaigning on the perceived need for change after 23 years of conservative (Liberal Party of Australia) government, Labor put forward a to scrap the traditional system of quoting prices in one-eighth increments - which they say fills brokers' pockets at the expense of consumers. But stock exchanges and the securities industry have resisted such a change, saying it would be prohibitively expensive because of the new technology required. The issue cuts across party lines in the House. At a hearing of the House Commerce subcommittee on finance, Rep. Thomas Manton
Thomas Manton (1620-1677) was a Puritan clergyman. Born in Laurence Lydiard, Somerset, Manton was educated locally and then at Hart Hall, Oxford where he graduated BA in 1639. of New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , the panel's senior Democrat, questioned whether Congress and federal securities regulators should require the market change by ``mandate.'' ``A great deal of time and energy will be expended making such a change,'' Manton said, adding that the current system ``has served us so very well for the last 200 years.'' A New York Republican, Rep. Rick Lazio, said there was a lack of reliable data on the experience of Canada's Toronto Stock Exchange Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) Canada's largest stock exchange, trading approximately 1,200 company stocks and 33 options. , which recently converted to decimal pricing. That move made the United States the only country with markets using fractions. Lazio suggested that the Securities and Exchange Commission should study the matter before taking action. SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. has expressed reservations about the bill, which would require the market watchdog agency to adopt a rule for dollars-and-cents pricing within a year of enactment. Levitt recently called decimal pricing a ``laudable goal'' but questioned whether government action was the most appropriate way to achieve it. |
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