"Since its launch, Primex has provided opportunities to further improve prices for investors in NASDAQ and listed stocks. Now that it's been made a permanent facility of NASDAQ, we look forward to enhancing its value," said Dean Furbush, executive vice president, NASDAQ Transaction Services.
"Primex looks forward to continuing its growth as the only fully automated hybrid dealer/auction system for trading equities," remarked Glen Shipway, Chief Executive, Primex Trading N.A., L.L.C., who has guided Primex from its inception. "We're pleased about reaching this important milestone and look forward to the completion of certain enhancements suggested by our participants, that will expand the benefits of using Primex within the NASDAQ marketplace."
One enhancement will be to access Primex via secure Internet connection, completely eliminating the necessity for dedicated lines and routers in order to obtain the benefits of Primex's private pool of liquidity. Completion of the Primex Integration into SuperMontageSM is another important enhancement.
"We are delighted to see the system permanently approved by the SEC,"remarked Robert E. Moore, head of U.S. cash trading at Salomon Smith Barney. "The Primex Auction System continues to benefit our customers, and now we can look forward to NASDAQ's planned enhancements that should make the system even more valuable as part of our firm's overall order handling process."
These enhancements are designed to benefit the public customer orders submitted to Primex each day (currently more than 50,000) and increase the ability for undisplayed, institutional-sized interest to participate in the NASDAQ market on a centralized basis.
Here is a summary of recent enhancements made to the Primex Auction System:
- Minimum size requirements were eliminated for Predefined Relative Indications (PRIs) submitted to Primex, making it even easier to participate in the auction anonymously until after the trade takes place. PRIs are instructions submitted to Primex to interact with future orders exposed on Primex.
- The rollout of the Brass® trade order management system has been completed and is now embedded in its January release. This removes any straight-through processing issues for exposing orders to Primex before internalizing or routing to SuperMontage.
- Lava Trading, a service bureau for connectivity to market liquidity sources, has integrated Primex into its front-end workstation and routing algorithms. This allows Lava customers to enter PRIs and orders to Primex without launching or monitoring a separate application.
- The process of complying with the short sale rule has been fully automated for NASDAQ securities.
About Primex
The Primex Auction System® is the creation of Primex Trading N.A., L.L.C., a partnership formed by securities industry brokerage firms and investment banks including Merrill Lynch, Salomon Smith Barney, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. New York-based Primex Trading N.A., L.L.C. conceives, designs, and licenses trading solutions for the securities industry. For more information go to www.primextrading.com, or contact Glen Shipway at glen.shipway@primextrading.com.
About NASDAQ
NASDAQ (OTCBB:NDAQ) is the world's largest electronic stock market. With approximately 3,700 companies, NASDAQ lists more companies and 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 industries. For more information about NASDAQ, visit the NASDAQ Web site at www.NASDAQ.com or the NASDAQ NewsroomSM at www.NASDAQnews.com.
