"The American Stock Exchange applauds the SEC's speedy rejection of the Knight petition. We are grateful that SEC moved expeditiously to allow the immediate resumption of the Amex's Nasdaq trading program.
The suspension of trading in Nasdaq securities was automatically prompted by Knight's filing of a petition based on substantive arguments that Knight previously made in February, and which had already been carefully considered and rejected by the SEC. As we stated at the time of their filing, we believe that Knight was grossly abusing the administrative process and acting in their own competitive self-interest in filing their petition.
By rejecting the Knight petition, the SEC has validated that competition in the market place is in the best interest of all market participants - especially investors.
The Amex will resume trading on Tuesday, August 27 in the nine securities it initially launched on Monday, August 12. Those nine securities include: Altera Corporation (ALTR), ASML Holding N.V. (ASML), Express Scripts Inc (ESRX), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), Huntington Bancshares Inc (HBAN), Human Genome Sciences Inc (HGSI), Lincare Holdings Inc (LNCR), MedImmune Inc (MEDI) and Staples Inc (SPLS). In addition, we expect to resume our phased roll out of the top 120 Nasdaq securities by trading 12 additional Nasdaq securities shortly.
The Amex's Nasdaq trading program got off to a strong and successful start. After only three days of trading nine securities, we had already made great progress, including securing a market share of about 10% in Staples, one of the nine securities initially launched.
We expect that the enthusiasm for our program will continue to grow when the inherent advantages of trading Nasdaq securities in the Amex market become more apparent."
