1.   A House subcommittee today passed a bill to require U.S. stock markets to use decimal prices rather than fractions in trading stocks.

2.   The move toward decimal prices for stocks is going to be delayed, perhaps for many months, because Nasdaq computer systems are inadequate.

3.   Hundreds of newspapers that publish stock prices have switched to the decimal format, and Web sites and monthly brokerage statements have regularly displayed decimal prices as well.

4.   Investors already have started seeing decimal prices for stocks in recent months.