In view of the enhanced disclosure to investors provided by this indicator, NASDAQ will, as of February 6, 2006, cease adding new "C", "E", and "Q" fifth character modifiers for NASDAQ National Market(R) and NASDAQ Capital Market(R) securities. However, to avoid investor confusion, modifiers already in place on that date will remain until the underlying condition is resolved.
The FSI provides more information than fifth character modifiers concerning deficient companies. In addition, more information concerning such companies can be found at http://www.nasdaq.com/services/DelDefOpenReport.pdf, which is updated each day.
The FSI data element is available on the following NASDAQ products: TotalView(SM), NASDAQ Quotation Dissemination Service(SM) (NQDS(SM)), UTP Quotation Data Feed(SM) (UQDF(SM)), UTP Trade Data Feed(SM), (UTDF(SM)), OTC Montage Data Feed(SM) (OMDF(SM)), NASDAQ issue Symbol Directory, NASDAQ Fundamental Data and NASDAQ Daily List. External market data distributors include the FSI on data feed products and market data terminals containing NASDAQ quotation and/or last sale information.
NASDAQ will continue to disseminate fifth character symbols to identify different classes of securities such as "W" for warrants, "P" for preferred stocks and "U" for units. The discontinuation of the fifth character identifier only applies to regulatory designators that identify "non-compliant" companies.
NASDAQ is the largest U.S. electronic stock market. With more than 3,100 companies, it lists more companies and, on average, trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market. It is home to companies that are leaders across all areas of business including technology, retail, communications, financial services, transportation, media and biotechnology. NASDAQ is the primary market for trading NASDAQ-listed stocks. For more information about NASDAQ, visit the NASDAQ Web site at http://www.nasdaq.com or the NASDAQ Newsroom at http://www.nasdaq.com/newsroom/.
