September 26, 2008

NASDAQ OMX Europe has commenced trading just six months after announcing its intent to launch a multilateral trading facility (MTF). Trading has begun in 25 FTSE 100 stocks and this will be followed by a staggered roll-out of approximately 600 European securities, to be completed by the end of October. Charlotte Crosswell, president of NASDAQ OMX Europe, said in a press release, "We are delighted to deliver our platform on plan within the aggressive timeframe we established. We are looking forward to delivering a better trading experience to investors as securities trading moves towards higher volumes executed at faster speeds. With our unique order routing capability, not offered by any other MTF, we have the capability to revolutionize the trading environment in Europe."

In connection to the NASDAQ OMX Europe launch, the NASDAQ OMX Europe Index has been introduced. The NASDAQ OMX Europe Index will be a market capitalized weighted index designed to track the companies traded on the NASDAQ OMX Europe marketplace. The NASDAQ OMX Europe Index will be calculated in Euros and disseminated every 15 seconds.

Naseer Al-Khudairi, co-head of cash trading at Credit Suisse said in the release, "We are excited to offer our clients access to NASDAQ OMX Europe and to be amongst the very first participants to trade on the platform. By adding NASDAQ OMX Europe as yet another destination to our smart order router, AES Pathfinder we will be able to deliver further improvements to our clients' execution performance. Ultimately our aim is to achieve the best possible execution for our clients through accessing multiple pools of liquidity in the most intelligent manner."

Stephen McGoldrick, director market infrastructure at Deutsche Bank added in the release, "NASDAQ OMX Europe's launch is another welcome step towards a competitive market for execution services. We wish them well with this exciting venture and hope their presence contributes to a more resilient Pan European equity market."