"Liquidity Tracker helps participants get better executions in all NASDAQ securites by directing orders to market participants whose recent trading activity supports a willingness to fill new orders," said Adena Friedman, executive vice president of NASDAQ Data Products. "Taking advantage of the depth and liquidity in NASDAQ, Liquidity Tracker is the only system that monitors participants trading behavior in real-time to determine who is most likely to be a willing and able buyer or seller."
Andy Brooks, vice president and head of equity trading at T. Rowe Price, said, "Liquidity Tracker is a win for investors. Anytime we can get more accurate information about natural buyers and sellers, we are able to do a better a job. Liquidity Tracker will help us identify natural buyers and sellers in an efficient manner. Accurate information about the point of sale is always good for investors."
Liquidity Tracker's order routing is based on recently printed trading activity and is complementary to the pre-trade information that SuperMontage provides. There are two levels of participation in Liquidity Tracker - order entry only or order receipt and order entry.
Benefits to participants who use Liquidity Tracker to receive orders include:
- Smart routing: Liquidity Tracker uses objective, verified, real-time Automated Confirmation Transaction ServiceSM (ACTSM) data to route new trading opportunities to Market Makers.
- Firm, negotiable orders: Liquidity Tracker orders are firm, negotiable orders, priced as good or better than the national best bid/offer;
- There is no execution fee for order recipients; and
Liquidity Tracker protects each participant's confidential trading interests. Market Makers' ACT data is used only for routing incoming firm orders to them.
- All participants can use Liquidity Tracker to send orders. Benefits to order entry participants include:
- Fast executions with controlled market impact: NASDAQ broker/dealers or sponsored institutional traders can route orders directly to Market Makers simultaneously working identical orders on opposite sides in the same securities;
- Real-time, ACT-based routing to likely identical orders on opposite sides;
- Bigger fills; and
- Competitive pricing for order entry.
- Benefits for all users include:
- No systems changes are needed to participate-market participants simply need to sign up; and
- NASDAQ's robust network is fully redundant and has consistently delivered 99.98% uptime for twenty years in a row.
A key contributor to the development of Liquidity Tracker was New York-based eXchange Advantage (eXA), which specializes in block trading technology. eXA conceptualized, designed and developed the software that facilitates the smart routing and matching of orders on opposite sides.
"We are very pleased to be working with NASDAQ and so many of the best Wall Street trading firms on this new way to trade large orders, said Fred Federspiel, president of eXA. The ability to get larger trades done more easily and efficiently will enhance NASDAQ's reputation as a highly innovative and transparent securities market."
For more information about eXA, visit www.eXchangeAdvantage.com.
NASDAQ (OTCBB:NDAQ) is the world's largest electronic stock market. With approximately 3,800 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 home to category-defining companies that are leaders across all areas of business including technology, retail, communications, financial services, media and biotechnology industries. NASDAQ is a key driver of capital formation. For more information about NASDAQ, visit the NASDAQ Web site at www.NASDAQ.com or the NASDAQ NewsroomSM at www.NASDAQnews.com.
