By Cydney Posner

The SEC today approved new rules to expand the "circuit breaker" program that was originally adopted in June to include all stocks in the Russell 1000 Index and certain exchange-traded funds. 

The program is designed to address potential market disruption by pausing trading in a security for a five-minute period if the security experiences a 10% price change over the preceding five minutes. The pause gives the markets "an opportunity to attract new trading interest in an affected stock, establish a reasonable market price, and resume trading in a fair and orderly fashion." The program is in effect on a pilot basis through December 10, 2010. A list of the securities included in the Russell 1000 Index, which was rebalanced on June 25, is available on the Russell website.

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