Dark Pool Trade Limit Said to Be Cut 95% in SEC Plan

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will propose toughening its limits on the amount of anonymous trading carried out on stock platforms called dark pools, according to two people familiar with the deliberations.

The commission will propose lowering the amount of daily volume in a company’s shares that can be executed in private on any of the networks to 0.25 percent from 5 percent at a hearing tomorrow in Washington, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions weren’t public. John Nester, an SEC spokesman, declined to comment.

The rule change may curtail the number of transactions on dark pools, off-exchange platforms run by firms such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Getco LLC that have drawn scrutiny from Democratic Senators Ted Kaufman of Delaware and Charles Schumer of New York. The systems usually shut down trading in a security when they approach the current 5 percent limit.

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