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The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. (NASDAQ(r)) (Nasdaq:NDAQ) today announced the NASDAQ Closing Cross had a record day today as it was used to calculate the entire family of U.S. Russell indexes during their annual reconstitution.
Approximately 678.5 million shares representing a record $11.7 billion were executed in the Closing Cross in a record 1.9 seconds across some 3,200 NASDAQ stocks. This compares with 690.8 million shares representing $10.5 billion during Russell's annual reconstitution in 2006.
NASDAQ official closing prices (NOCPs) determined by the NASDAQ Closing Cross are widely used throughout the industry, including Russell Indexes, Standard & Poor's, Dow Jones, and mutual funds across the country.
"The Closing Cross has reinforced its reputation as the nation's premier price discovery facility," stated Chris Concannon, Executive Vice President of NASDAQ Transaction Services. "For the fourth consecutive year, this powerful electronic auction has provided index providers, mutual fund managers, and the investing public at-large with accurate and certain closing prices during one of the most significant liquidity events of the year."
The Closing Cross brings together the buy and sell interest in specific NASDAQ stocks and executes all shares for each stock at a single price, one that reflects the true supply and demand for NASDAQ securities.
All NASDAQ securities are eligible for the NASDAQ Closing Cross. Russell's family of U.S. indexes reflect 98 percent of the market capitalization of all publicly-traded U.S. companies and are used as benchmarks for more institutional funds than any other index family. They have been the fastest growing suite of U.S. indexes since 1998 with more than $4 trillion in institutional assets benchmarked against them.
Russell reconstitution day is usually one of the most highly anticipated and heaviest trading days in the U.S. equity market as asset managers seek to reconfigure their portfolios to reflect the composition of Russell's U.S. indexes. The index reconstitution process was completed today and the newly reconstituted index membership will take effect before markets open on Monday, June 25.
For more information about the NASDAQ Closing Cross, please visit http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader/openclose/ccfactsheet.pdf.
