The Ontario Securities Commission has again rejected a request by Mark Valentine to allow him to personally invest on the Nasdaq Stock Market and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

At a hearing yesterday, a panel of OSC commissioners extended the terms of an 18-month cease-trading order against Valentine to the earlier date of July 31 or the start of a regulatory hearing, expected to begin this June.

The temporary cease-trading order, extended for the fourth time yesterday, restricts him to trading shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.

The OSC initially imposed the trading restrictions in June 2002, after it accused the former chairman of now-bankrupt brokerage Thomson Kernaghan & Co. Ltd. of improperly trading securities. Valentine was also charged with fraud in 2002 after being nabbed in an FBI sting operation. He has denied any wrongdoing.