The NASDAQ OMX Group (Nasdaq:NDAQ) today announced that, effective September 1, 2010, it will introduce new trading symbology in preparation for the industry's listing and trading of five-character root U.S. equity symbols as permitted by the National Market System Plan for the Selection and Reservation of Securities Symbols.
Since no cash equities exchange currently lists root ticker symbols of more than four characters, NASDAQ OMX will be required to modify its current root and suffix symbols in order to avoid investor confusion associated with the listing and trading of five-character root symbols.
Under the new symbology, NASDAQ OMX will identify all subordinate issues for NASDAQ-listed securities with the use of a "." mark. The character following the "." mark will now relay the basic information about the issue class or issue type. For example, ABCDA would become ABCD.A. The current A-Z suffix definition will not change. NASDAQ-listed symbols that follow the current suffix symbology will be migrated to the new plan outlined above.
More detailed information is available in Equity Trader Alert #2010-011:
http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/TraderNews.aspx?id=ETA2010-011
The list of affected NASDAQ-listed symbols is available at: http://media.globenewswire.com/cache/6948/file/7926.pdf
Please note this list is subject to change.
