WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators moved Wednesday, May 26, toward requiring a uniform system for tracking all securities orders on U.S. exchanges, in hopes of making it easier to investigate market disruptions like the May 6 plunge.

Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed, on a 5-0 vote, requiring exchanges to maintain an “audit trail” covering trading orders from start to routing to execution.

The regulators say that would make it easier to investigate market disruptions like the so-called “flash crash” earlier this month that sent the Dow Jones industrials down nearly 1,000 points in less than 30 minutes.

The new system, however, would be phased in under the SEC proposal and wouldn’t be fully operational until about three years from now, SEC officials said at a public meeting. It would cost market players, including exchange monitoring bodies and brokerage firms, about $4 billion to put into place and $2 billion a year to operate, according to SEC estimates.

The proposed rule could be formally adopted sometime after a 60-day public comment period, possibly with changes.

More than 19 billion shares changed hands on May 6. Requirements for keeping “audit trails” vary among exchanges and markets, making it hard for regulators to get their hands on current order data.

The technology used by regulators for market oversight and surveillance hasn’t kept pace with fast-evolving and splintering markets, where sleek electronic trading platforms compete with the traditional exchanges and powerful computers give traders a split-second edge in buying or selling stocks.

A new system would allow regulators to get access in real time to most of the data needed to reconstruct the type of market disruption that occurred on May 6, with the remaining data available in days rather than weeks, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said before the vote.

The change “would be an important next step in our efforts to maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets,” she said.

A systemwide audit trail could help regulators pinpoint the cause of market disruptions but may not eliminate every gap in tracking trades, said Menachem Brenner, research professor of finance at New York University Stern School of Business. For instance, trades of U.S. stocks executed on overseas exchanges likely won’t be included in the audit trail, Brenner said.

“We always kind of leave out that there’s a lot trading that happens outside the U.S. in places like London and Hong Kong,” Brenner said. “But any measure being implemented by the SEC is only going to apply to U.S. exchanges.”

Still, he said, the plan should help regulators avoid future market irregularities. “Hopefully by knowing what causes the problem, they’ll be better able to come up with a solution,” Brenner said.

Following the “flash crash,” the SEC and the major exchanges unveiled a plan to adopt market-wide “circuit breakers” to pause trading during periods of high volatility.

Under that plan, trading of any Standard & Poor’s 500 stock that rises or falls 10 percent or more within a five-minute period would be halted for five minutes. The rules would be applied if the price swing occurs between 9:45 a.m. and 3:35 p.m. Eastern time — nearly the entire trading day.

The break is intended to head off a chain reaction of human and computerized selling, one of several possible causes of the May 6 plunge. The drop briefly wiped out $1 trillion in market value as some stocks traded as low as a penny.

The SEC members also voted Wednesday to tighten rules governing disclosures about municipal securities, to aid investors in a $2.8 trillion market used by local governments to finance schools, roads and hospitals around the country. The new rules, which take effect Dec. 1, require brokers and dealers in municipal bonds and other securities to make fuller and more timely disclosures to investors.

The change brings brokers’ disclosure requirements for municipal securities in line with what is mandated in the market for corporate securities, SEC officials say.

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AP Business Writer Stevenson Jacobs in New York contributed to this report.

BOSTON (AP) — What’s not to like about this stock market? It’s been steadily rising for more than a month. And it’s been the kind of gentle climb that appeals to investors eager for a respite from a couple years of sharp ups and downs.

As stocks have ticked upward from a Feb. 8 low, a measure of the market’s volatility has sunk to its lowest level in nearly two years. The Chicago Board of Index Options’ Volatility Index — informally known as Wall Street’s fear gauge — has closed below 17 points for five trading days in a row, and finished Tuesday at 16.35. The last time the VIX closed below 17 was May 16, 2008. It’s even slightly below its historic average of around 19 points.

The VIX measures market expectations of volatility over the next 30 days by tracking the prices investors are willing to pay for options — contracts to buy or sell a stock at a specified price and time. Investors buy options to protect themselves against fluctuating stock prices. When stocks are volatile, investors are afraid, and willing to pay higher prices for options. That raises the VIX.

Lately, investors have become more comfortable that they can predict the market’s direction.

“There is just not the demand for the kind of protection that options offer,” says Dan Deming of Stutland Equities, who trades options tied to the VIX.

The return to normalcy follows a dizzying couple years that saw the VIX hit a historic closing peak of 80 after the Lehman Brothers collapse.

The index sank into the teens late last year, then briefly returned to the 20s in late January amid fears about Greece’s shaky finances and broader worries about the global economy. Now VIX is back in the teens, despite the mixed signals investors continue to get about the pace of economic recovery.

But stocks have been resilient.

“Each time it looks like the market will break down a bit, it’s been able to find fresh money,” Deming says.

After starting the year on an up note, stocks began falling in late January. The bull market got back on track starting Feb. 9, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 has since risen 10.8 percent. That climb has been smooth, with few big one-day swings, and overall the index is up 5 percent for the year.

Deming figures the market’s rise is slightly ahead of where it should be, given the uncertainty about the economy as government stimulus measures are withdrawn. For example, a $1.25 trillion Federal Reserve program to buy up mortgage securities is set to expire March 31, which many fear could trigger a rise in mortgage rates.

“The market looks pretty tired,” says Deming, who believes the S&P 500 is likely to slip around 5 percent in the next month. “There are certainly areas of the economy, like housing, that need to show some signs of life for the market to really go much higher.”

If the market starts to decline, the VIX would likely rise, as investors are willing to pay more for protection from stock swings.

Still, investors shouldn’t use the VIX to predict where stocks are headed. A study this month by the market research firm Birinyi Associates didn’t find a strong correlation.

The report called the VIX “a coincidental indicator with limited predictive value. It details, perhaps better than other measures, the volatility of the market today, but not tomorrow or the day after.”

NEW YORK — On March 9, 2009, it felt like the world was ending.

The Dow Jones industrial average had tumbled to a 12-year low of 6,547, and looked to keep plunging. A day later, Citigroup Inc. stopped the market’s drop with news that it was turning a profit. That began the stock market’s answer to the Great Recession: the Great Rebound.

The numbers are hard to believe. The Dow has rocketed 61 percent in a year. That’s the kind of gain that would normally come in five or six good years. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index — which is the basis for many retirement accounts and mutual funds — jumped 20 percent in the first 10 trading days after March low. It’s now up 68 percent.

And Citigroup? The bank that was hardest hit by the financial meltdown has seen its shares triple to $3.50.

There are still huge worries about jobs, deficits and the government’s role in propping up a shaky financial system. But the market’s climb means that, for now, investors are betting on a sustained economic recovery.

Here’s a by-the-numbers look at one of the most remarkable years in the history of the stock market.

— $5.6 trillion: Total gains in the stock market since March 9, as measured by the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index, which tracks nearly all U.S.-based companies.

— $5.6 trillion: The amount that stocks are still down from October 2007, when the Dow peaked at 14,164.

— 83 percent: Amount the technology-dominated Nasdaq composite index is up since March 9.

— 98 percent: Number of stocks in the S&P 500 index that are up since March.

— 24 percent: Number of stocks in the S&P 500 index that are up since the market’s peak in October 2007.

— 129 percent: The average gain among financial stocks — the best-performing industry group in the S&P 500 index.

— 97 percent: The average gain among consumer-discretionary stocks, which includes retailers.

— 17 percent: The average gain among telecommunications services stocks — the worst-performing industry group.

— 1,701 percent: Gain in shares of Genworth Financial Inc. from 91 cents to $16.39, through March 5. The best performer in the S&P 500 index.

— 647 percent: Gain in a share of Ford Motor Co. from $1.74 to $13.00.

— 345 percent: Gain in a share of Bank of America Corp. from $3.75 to $16.70.

— 121 percent: Gain in a share of General Electric Co. from $7.41 to $16.35.

— 14 percent: Gain in a share of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. from $47.51 to $54.14.

— -56 percent: Drop in shares of MetroPCS Communications Inc. from $14.56 to $6.38; the worst performer in the S&P 500 index.

— -$1.55 billion: Net cash flow for stock mutual funds, representing the money put into funds minus the money taken out.

— $386 billion: Net cash flow for bond mutual funds.

— 18-20: The historical average for the Volatility Index of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, also known as the VIX, or the market’s “Fear Index.”

— 49.68: Where the VIX stood a year ago.

— 17.42: Where the VIX closed on March 5.

— $918: The price of an ounce of gold a year ago.

— $1,135.20: The price of an ounce of gold on March 5.

— 8.2 percent: Unemployment rate as of February last year.

— 9.7 percent: Unemployment rate as of February of this year.

— 726,000: Jobs lost in February last year.

— 36,000: Jobs lost in February of this year.

— $202.1 billion: Losses of the companies in the S&P 500 index in the final three months of 2008, a record.

— $132.7 billion: Estimated earnings of the companies in the S&P 500 index in the final three months of 2009.

— $1.26: The amount it cost to buy one euro a year ago.

— $1.36: The amount it costs to buy one euro now.

— 25.3: Consumer confidence a year ago — a record low.

— 46: Consumer confidence today.

— 90: Consumer confidence number that economists believe signifies a healthy economy.

— 5.15 percent: Average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage last year.

— 4.97 percent: Average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage now.