"NASDAQ is committed to meeting the evolving needs of the securities industry. A number of important developments have contributed to the decision to implement these changes including the shift in liquidity concentration resulting from the conversion to decimals and increased interest in index-related products, making the open and close key indicators of valuation," said Adena Friedman, Executive Vice President of NASDAQ Data Products.
In redesigning the Market Open, NASDAQ will introduce new order types within SuperMontage including market-on-open and limit-on-open orders. Current order types will also be eligible to participate in the new Market Open. While orders are gathered in the minutes leading up to the 9:30 a.m. Market Open, NASDAQ will publish an order imbalance indicator available on the NWII and over the NASDAQ TotalView data feed to make investors aware of the collective buying and selling interest.
At 9:30 a.m., all eligible orders in SuperMontage will be executed via the NASDAQ Opening Cross, at a single price, which will be used as the benchmark for establishing index values and pricing derivative products on major expiration days. NASDAQ plans to have the NASDAQ Opening Cross in production during the second quarter 2004. NASDAQ will also establish the NASDAQ Closing Cross, similar to the NASDAQ Opening Cross, which is also scheduled for launch in 2004. Prior to the launch of the new NASDAQ Opening Cross, NASDAQ will make more immediate enhancements to the calculation of the NASDAQ opening price. NASDAQ will create and disseminate a NASDAQ Official Opening Price, determined by the first execution within SuperMontage at 9:30 a.m. For stocks where there is no match at 9:30 a.m., NASDAQ will use the first last-sale eligible trade reported to NASDAQ's ACT system. The NASDAQ Official Opening Price will be distributed to market data vendors over NASDAQ's proprietary index data feed. The NASDAQ Official Opening Price is scheduled for implementation in January 2004.
"NASDAQ is always looking for ways to augment its products to meet the changing needs of the industry, so we also plan to enhance the current NASDAQ Official Closing Price process," continued Ms. Friedman. "Our planned enhancements will ensure a more robust and definitive closing price for NASDAQ stocks, providing even greater certainty in pricing major transactions and daily mutual fund Net Asset Values."
The NASDAQ Official Closing Price (NOCP) will be enhanced for industry use as the benchmark for market-on-close orders, index valuations, and mutual fund net-asset-valuations. The NOCP was launched in April 2003 and has been widely adopted by the industry as the benchmark price for the market close.
NASDAQ is the world's largest electronic stock market. With approximately 3,400 companies, it lists more companies and, on average, trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market. It is home to category-defining companies that are leaders across all areas of business including technology, retail, communications, financial services, media and biotechnology. For more information about NASDAQ, visit the NASDAQ Web site at www.NASDAQ.com or the NASDAQ NewsroomSM at www.NASDAQnews.com.
