"We're very pleased that Island ECN has decided to participate in SuperMontage. The addition of Island's liquidity and order flow will further enhance the value SuperMontage provides for investors," said Dean Furbush, executive vice president of Nasdaq Transaction Services. "Nasdaq's open and inclusive trading environment provides all market participants -regardless of business model-with the opportunity to voluntarily compete on a level playing field. We continue to work closely with other ECNs to demonstrate the advantages of SuperMontage."
"Island ECN is excited to participate in SuperMontage," said Island CEO Matthew Andresen. "Super Montage will be a significant improvement in Nasdaq's evolving market structure. Island participation in SuperMontage will give our subscribers access to an increasingly deeper and unique pool of marketable orders"
SuperMontage is an important step forward in the ongoing evolution of The Nasdaq Stock Market. The new trading system will provide traders and investors alike with more information and a more efficient means to act on that information. SuperMontage was conceived to be the center of liquidity in Nasdaq-listed securities. It will offer the marketplace greater transparency - allowing participants to enter several price levels; satisfy market participants' needs for more choices in order display and execution; and provide a higher level of confidence for traders' best execution responsibilities. In the new SuperMontage platform, quotes and orders will go through single-computer architecture, adding speed and efficiency to the market.
In 2001, Nasdaq completed the design, coding and programming of SuperMontage. In January 2002, quality control testing began and, most recently, the first round of internal testing was successfully completed. External customer testing, in which Island will participate, will begin on April 20th. SuperMontage is scheduled for a phased-in implementation in late July 2002.
Nasdaq is the world's largest stock market. With more than 4,000 companies, Nasdaq lists more companies and trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market. Over the past five years, Nasdaq has outpaced all other U.S. markets in listing IPOs. It is also home to category defining companies that are leaders across all areas of business including technology, retail, communications, transportation, media and healthcare industries. With operations on three continents, Nasdaq is a key driver of global capital formation. For more information about Nasdaq, visit the Nasdaq Web site at www.nasdaq.com or the Nasdaq NewsroomSM at www.nasdaqnews.com.
