A Smooth First Day for New Nasdaq Rules

Trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market proceeded with few hitches Monday on the first day new Securities and Exchange Commission order-handling rules took effect, pleasantly surprising regulators and Wall Street.

“It’s a pretty damn good day,” Nasdaq spokeswoman Cameron Brown said.

The Securities Industry Assn., which is monitoring brokerages and reporting back to the SEC, agreed. “Some people’s concerns were overblown,” said Bernard L. Madoff, a New York-based dealer who heads the SIA’s trading committee.

Nasdaq and some brokerages had expected a host of technical problems as Wall Street’s computers operated for the first time according to rule changes.

The new rules are being phased in over the next seven months. So far, they apply to just 50 of Nasdaq’s most actively traded stocks.

The changes aim to give individual investors in Nasdaq stocks access to the best available prices, to narrow “spreads”--that is, the difference between the buy and sell prices of a stock that constitute the dealer’s profit. Nasdaq dealers are now required to allow customer “limit orders”--stock orders for buying or selling at specified prices--to compete with orders placed by dealers and institutions. Dealers also must post quotes from private trading systems when those prices are superior to publicly displayed quotes.

Nasdaq said it was flooded with calls from confused dealers but that the volume subsided as the day progressed.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 15.24 points to 1,364.28, a new high.