Regions

The Securities and Exchange Commission and executives of the stock exchange met on Thursday to talk about backing up the Nasdaq stock quotes processor. The meeting was scheduled a couple of weeks ago by SEC Chair Mary Jo White to address the issue of the securities information processor or SIP which malfunctioned last month. The event on August 22 caused Nasdaq stocks to halt trading for three hours.

The technological failures that had plagued the stock market in the US brought in questions about the fragility of the system. Regulators said one potential way to address the problem was to create a backup. This could be done by having bourse operators like the Nasdaq OMX Group Inc and the NYSE Euronext to distribute data in each other's systems.

Jamie Selway, a managing director for a brokerage firm, said it's the most likely solution. "That's a feasible option. We've heard that from a few places," Selway added. However, the two exchanges would need to get over the major obstacle of coding. Both Nasdaq and NYSE Euronext follow two different SIP coding systems.