"NASDAQ is home to companies that are redefining their industries and each of those companies play an integral role in our market," said Denise Benou Stires, executive vice president, worldwide marketing and investor services of NASDAQ. "We provide our listed companies with unequalled visibility and our newly reengineered Market Open provides an enhanced context to honor the daily launch of trading on the world's largest electronic stock market. The Market Open is a technological feat each day and NASDAQ's new ceremony allows our companies to celebrate their firm's role in the trading day in an exceptionally personal way."
At 9:30 a.m. ET each day as the guest sets NASDAQ trading in motion, they will mark their signature on a specially developed glass screen that simultaneously transmits the signature across the MarketSite broadcast studio wall and exterior seven-story video tower.
NASDAQ's new Market Open, which was developed in partnership with Imagination (USA) Inc, a leading design and communications firm, captures the surge of volume and activity at the start of each trading day. Upon opening the market at 9:30 a.m., a multi-media graphic depicting a cross-section of NASDAQ's key industry sectors fills the video wall inside the MarketSite broadcast studio, as well as the tower in Times Square.
The new Market Open includes the redesign of NASDAQ's broadcast information graphics to allow for more effective integration into the 175 live market updates delivered daily from MarketSite each day. At 4:00 p.m. ET, the close of trading each day, the MarketSite Tower, the largest stationary video screen in the world, will display the up to the minute NASDAQ Composite level, NASDAQ Sector volume information, as well as volume and performance information for the NASDAQ-100 Trust (QQQ).
NASDAQ MarketSite is a state-of-the-art broadcast facility, with more than more than 15 news media outlets broadcasting worldwide each day. The redesign of the broadcast information graphics displayed on the 96 multi-media screens, which make up the studio wall, allows the reporters based at MarketSite to broadcast financial information more efficiently and effectively.
NASDAQ held its first Market Open ceremony in 1997 in lower Manhattan and moved the ceremony to MarketSite in 2000. The Market Open ceremony is held each trading day and guests include the leaders of NASDAQ-listed companies, politicians, entertainers, athletes and non-profit organizations. For more information about The Nasdaq Stock Market, visit the Nasdaq Web site at http://www.nasdaq.com or the Nasdaq NewsroomSM at http://www.nasdaqnews.com.