NEW YORK, June 30, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. (NASDAQ) (Nasdaq:NDAQ) announced the NASDAQ Closing Cross had a record day today as it was used to calculate the entire family of Russell indexes during their annual reconstitution. Approximately 690.8 million shares representing $10.5 billion were executed in the Closing Cross in 5.1 seconds across some 3,200 NASDAQ stocks. This compares with 428.5 million shares representing $5.8 billion during Russell's annual reconstitution in 2005. To see the top 10 crosses in terms of share volume, please visit http://www.nasdaq.com/newsroom/documents/Russell_Top10_063006.pdf.
NASDAQ official closing prices (NOCPs) determined by the NASDAQ Closing Cross are widely used throughout the industry, including Russell Indexes, Standard & Poor's, Dow Jones, and mutual funds across the country.
"The Closing Cross has been a tremendous success since it launched and today's performance bolstered its reputation as the nation's leading price discovery facility," said Chris Concannon, Executive Vice President of NASDAQ Transaction Services. "For the third consecutive year, the Closing Cross has performed well, further demonstrating the industry's ability to obtain accurate and consistent closing prices during one of the most significant liquidity events of the year."
The Closing Cross brings together the buy and sell interest in specific NASDAQ stocks and executes all shares for each stock at a single price, one that reflects the true supply and demand for NASDAQ securities.
All NASDAQ securities are eligible for the NASDAQ Closing Cross. The Russell Indexes contain 98 percent of the market capitalization of all publicly-traded companies and are used as benchmarks for more funds than any other U.S. index family. They have been the fastest growing suite of U.S. indexes since 1998 with more than $3.8 trillion in institutional assets benchmarked against them.
Russell reconstitution day is usually one of the most highly anticipated and heaviest trading days in the U.S. equity market as asset managers seek to reconfigure their portfolios to reflect the composition of Russell's indexes. The index reconstitution process was completed today and the newly reconstituted index membership will take effect when markets open on Monday, July 3rd.
For more information about the NASDAQ Closing Cross, please visit http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader/openclose/ccfactsheet.pdf
About NASDAQ
NASDAQ(r) is the largest electronic screen-based equity securities market in the United States. With approximately 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 www.nasdaq.com or the NASDAQ Newsroom at www.nasdaq.com/newsroom/.