Exchanges Deny Merger Rumors

As competition within the U.S. stock markets intensifies, the once-unthinkable has become increasingly possible.

The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market, the two largest U.S. markets and bitter rivals for three decades, acknowledged that they flirted recently with a possible merger.

But people close to the situation say a blending of the two markets’ starkly different trading systems is extremely unlikely. Nasdaq is a computerized market, while people bid on stocks on a trading floor at the NYSE.

The extraordinary proposal to join forces comes less than a year after both markets announced they would sell stakes in themselves and convert to for-profit companies in an effort to fend off competition from upstart computerized trading systems.

Spokesmen for both exchanges said no deals are pending.