WASHINGTON (AP)—A congressional agency’s report on last October’s stock market crash concluded Tuesday that computerized trading equipment and the way transactions are regulated should be overhauled to avoid another such plunge.

The General Accounting Office’s study said that the nation’s various financial markets increasingly have come to affect one another, meaning trading officials must find ways to prevent plummeting prices in one exchange from spilling into others.

But the GAO, an investigating agency for Congress, said government regulators also must keep up with the times as trading volumes grow and links become stronger among securities and future markets, at home and overseas.

“The federal government cannot escape responsibility for assuring that such a vital mechanism performs effectively in the public interest,” Bowsher added.

The preliminary study, on which research will continue, is the second major federal analysis of Wall Street’s unprecedented October collapse. In the first 19 days of that month, the Dow Jones industrial average lost about one-third of its total value, or about $1 trillion. On Oct. 19, Black Monday, the Dow dropped 508 points, a 23 percent plunge.