The head of the New York Stock Exchange told a Sunday newspaper that it would take six to nine months to emerge from the financial crisis, with a possible recovery in 2009.

"We will not come out of the crisis for two or three quarters," NYSE Euronext (NYX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chief Executive Duncan Niederauer told Italian newspaper La Repubblica in an interview published in Italian.

"Maybe at the end of 2009 there could be a recovery. However, it will take years before everything comes back to complete regularity. And in any case, the financial world will be completely different to how it was up until now."

Niederauer said the U.S. finance sector would come out "heavily reorganised".

"There will be new rules to make market procedures more transparent," he said.

"Moreover, I think that in the future the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank will move to eliminate financial instruments that have been seen as dangerous, such as credit default swaps."

When asked whether short-selling should be blocked, he said: "Short-selling is a market strategy, and as a strategy I do not think it should be blocked. However, regulation would be opportune."