NASDAQ

The NASDAQ Stock Market (ⁱ/ˈnæzˌdæk/), commonly known as the NASDAQ (currently stylized as Nasdaq), is an American stock exchange. It is the second-largest exchange in the world by market capitalization, behind only the New York Stock Exchange. The exchange platform is owned by The NASDAQ OMX Group, which also owns the OMX stock market network and several other US stock and options exchanges.

History

In 1972, NASDAQ stood for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations. NASDAQ was founded in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), which divested itself of NASDAQ in a series of sales in 2000 and 2001. NASDAQ is owned and operated by The NASDAQ OMX Group, the stocks of which were listed on its own stock exchange beginning July 2, 2002, under the ticker symbol NDAQ.

When the NASDAQ began trading on February 8, 1971, it was the world's first electronic stock market. At first, it was merely a quotation system and did not provide a way to perform electronic trades. The NASDAQ helped lower the spread (the difference between the bid price and the ask price of the stock) but was unpopular among brokerages which made much of their money on the spread.

NASDAQ-100

The NASDAQ-100 (^NDX) is a stock market index made up of 107 equity securities issued by 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the NASDAQ. It is a modified capitalization-weighted index. The stocks' weights in the index are based on their market capitalizations, with certain rules capping the influence of the largest components. It is based on exchange, and it is not an index of U.S.-based companies. It does not have any financial companies, since these were put in a separate index. Both of those criteria differentiate it from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the exclusion of financial companies distinguishes it from the S&P 500.

History

The NASDAQ-100 began on January 31, 1985 by the NASDAQ, trying to promote itself in the shadow of the New York Stock Exchange. It did so by creating two separate indices: this index, which consists of Industrial, Technology, Retail, Telecommunication, Biotechnology, Health Care, Transportation, Media and Service companies, and the NASDAQ Financial-100, which consists of banking companies, insurance firms, brokerage houses and mortgage companies. By creating these two indices, the NASDAQ hoped that options and futures contracts would be created on them, and mutual funds would adopt them as their benchmarks.