"The heat applied last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Nasdaq Stock Market is reigniting some criticism that the market needs a much stronger overhaul than what the SEC wants.</br></br>The SEC last week brought a disciplinary case against the National Association of Securities Dealers, the parent and self-regulator of the Nasdaq Stock Market, for failing to clamp down on dealers who engaged in anticompetitive, anti-investor behavior.</br></br>The SEC said NASD failed to stop some dealers from keeping artificially wide the spread between the prices at which they offer to buy and sell stocks; failed to keep dealers from reporting trades late -- a practice that obscures the true market for certain stocks; failed to discipline dealers who refused to honor their quoted prices to investors; and failed to halt market makers who coordinated with other dealers to set prices for their own advantage instead of for that of customers.</br></br>""Nasdaq market makers have engaged in a variety of abusive practices to suppress competition and mislead customers,"" the SEC wrote in its extensive report, which capped two years of investigation into practices on the market.</br></br>The NASD settled the case without admitting or denying wrongdoing and agreed to some 14 reforms, including ponying up $100 million over five years to increase its surveillance of dealers and strengthen its rules."