Summary: Plans by the securities industry to convert computer systems to allow trading in decimals rather than fractions are generally on hold. The industry's resources are being devoted first to dealing with the Year 2000 problem, and industry officials believe that carrying out both the Year 2000 and decimalization efforts at the same time would jeopardize both. The securities markets have established a working group to expand on earlier industry discussions about decimal trading, develop decimal conversion standards, and set time frames for converting to decimals. GAO found that making Year 2000 changes continues to require significant resources from the securities industry and will demand much of the limited time remaining for testing the changes. Ensuring the success of these changes is too important for the industry to risk failure by attempting to implement decimal trading before the Year 2000 changes are made. However, GAO identifies several key elements that could help ensure that the change to decimal trading is made as soon as possible after January 1, 2000.
