Nasdaq Launches Experimental Lower Access Fee Program
Traders Magazine Online News, February 2, 2015
John D'Antona Jr.
In a bid to help simplify the current equity market structure, NASDAQ OMX, has announced a new experimental pilot program that lowers access fees for select stocks.
Effective today, the exchange said it is launching lower access fees for 14 stocks representing both small and large capitalization companies traded on U.S. equity listings venues. The goal is to boost trading on the exchange and increase profitability, as well as simplify the multiple access fees charged for stocks.
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The program reduces the access fee to five cents per 100 shares from 30 cents per 100 shares in 14 stocks and reduces the rebates for liquidity provision on the Nasdaq Stock Market. According to the exchange, this experiment will generate much-needed data about the impact of the level of access fees on areas that matter most to investors and public companies such as the level of off-exchange trading, price discovery, trading costs, displayed liquidity and execution quality.
"We have a bias to action and finding solutions based on empirical evidence," said Tom Wittman, head of Global Equities and Executive Vice President of Global Trading and Market Services at Nasdaq. "Today we move forward proactively with our experimental pricing program to see how lowered access fees affects the quality of the markets for investors and public companies."
The duration of Nasdaq's experimental access fee program will be no less than four months. Periodically, Nasdaq will publicly post the results of the program. Statistics to be analyzed and discussed are changes in market share, displayed liquidity, effective spread and volatility amongst other metrics.
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