Mondo Visione Worldwide Financial Markets Intelligence

FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index:

Two New Exchange Traded Funds Based On Nasdaq Indexes Are Under Development

Date 27/02/2006

The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. today announced it has entered into an agreement with First Trust Advisors L.P. to launch two new exchange traded funds (ETFs), the NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted Fund (NASDAQ:QQEW) and the NASDAQ-100 Technology Fund (NASDAQ:QTEC), which will be based on the NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted IndexSM (Symbol:NDXE) and the NASDAQ-100 Technology IndexSM (Symbol:NDXT), respectively. The ETFs will be managed by First Trust Advisors L.P. and listed on NASDAQ®.

The NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted Fund and the NASDAQ-100 Technology Fund are designed to correspond to the price and yield performance of the indexes upon which they are based. ETFs are financial products that trade like shares of stock and can be bought and sold throughout the trading day.

NASDAQ Executive Vice President John Jacobs stated, "We are pleased to partner with First Trust which is widely recognized as a leader in providing some of the most innovative financial services in the marketplace. Our collaboration with First Trust underscores NASDAQ's commitment to provide investors with a variety of practical products that are designed to help them reach their investment goals."

The NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted Index is the equal weighted version of the NASDAQ-100 Index®, which includes 100 of the largest non-financial securities listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market® based on market capitalization. The Index contains the same securities as the NASDAQ-100 Index, but each of the securities is initially set at a weight of 1.00% of the Index and is rebalanced quarterly.

The NASDAQ-100 Technology Index is an equal weighted index based on technology companies in the NASDAQ-100 Index. The NASDAQ-100 Technology Index contains securities in the NASDAQ-100 Index that are classified as technology according to the ICB Classification System. Each of the securities is initially set at an equal weight of the Index and is rebalanced quarterly.

NASDAQ is the largest U.S. electronic stock market. With more than 3,200 companies, it lists more companies and, on average, trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market. It is home to companies that are leaders across all areas of business including technology, retail, communications, financial services, transportation, media and biotechnology. NASDAQ is the primary market for trading NASDAQ-listed stocks. For more information about NASDAQ, visit the NASDAQ Web site at http://www.nasdaq.com or the NASDAQ Newsroom at http://www.nasdaq.com/newsroom/.