For the past several years, Nasdaq has been in the vanguard of a broad and diverse coalition of industry participants that aims to improve and modernize the structure of the U.S. public equity markets.
Nasdaq’s latest application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) details a vision for a market tier tailored to the characteristics and needs of Nasdaq-listed thinly-traded securities and their issuers. The proposal requests exemptive authority to terminate Unlisted Trading Privileges (UTP) and supports smaller, lower-volume Nasdaq-listed stocks in choosing to trade only on Nasdaq. Concentrating disaggregated liquidity onto a single exchange will allow investors to better source liquidity and enjoy a higher level of transparency.
Nasdaq hopes the application will serve as a catalyst for introducing a broad array of proposed reforms and innovations which, collectively, will provide a more inviting environment for small and medium sized enterprise (SME) issuers to list their securities and a more supportive environment within which to trade them.
Our input draws from suggestions from issuers, investors, market makers, exchange members, and other industry participants as well as the successes of Nasdaq’s First North Growth Market in the Nordic region. The proposal is part of a larger group of reform initiatives in our 2017 Revitalize blueprint and our 2019 TotalMarkets blueprint to improve the listing and trading environments for Nasdaq-listed thinly-traded securities.
