To: Suresh who wrote (44904)
From: Glenn D. Rudolph Tuesday, Mar 9, 1999 11:11 PM ET
Reply # of 115236
NYSE's grip on prized trading symbols may weaken
NEW YORK, March 9 (Reuters) - From the New York Stock
Exchange's point of view, the trading symbol "Q" -- long
associated with bankruptcy -- may have lived up to its
reputation for bad luck on Wall Street.
The NYSE, which went to court to defend the letter "Q" from
falling into the hands of its archrival, may now have to share
the few remaining single-letter trading symbols.
After a meeting Tuesday morning attended by officials of the
U.S. stock exchanges and top regulators, a deal was struck to
assign trading symbols in a more orderly fashion, American
Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Syron said.
Details have yet to be announced, but the fresh arrangement
could very well benefit the Amex and the Nasdaq stock market,
which share a parent organization, the National Association of
Securities Dealers, or NASD.
"It's now the case that if you reserve a letter, you have
it indefinitely," said NYSE outside counsel, Russell Brooks, at
New York law firm Millbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy.
One-letter symbols, like "F" for Ford Motor Co. <F.N> and
"T" for AT&T Corp. <T.N>, are prized on Wall Street as marks of
prestige. They have long been the exclusive province of the
NYSE. But its archrival, the Nasdaq-Amex, recently went after
one of the last remaining open letters, the "Q."
There are only four one-letter symbols -- "I," "M," "Q" and
"V. -- that have not been assigned. And Viacom recently moved
from the American Stock Exchange to the NYSE and may land "V."
The NYSE had previously reserved the symbols "I" and "M,"
with Chairman Richard Grasso occasionally joking they are being
used as bait to lure Intel Corp. <INTC.O> and Microsoft
Corp.<MSFT.O> from the Nasdaq.
That leaves "Q." Nasdaq-Amex filed to use Q to trade a new
product -- stocks that would track the performance of the top
100 Nasdaq stocks. Nasdaq-Amex officially said it picked the
letter because of the "Q" at the end of Nasdaq, but others said
the Nasdaq-Amex probably hoped the NYSE would not mind, because
of the letter's tainted history.
Wall Street lore holds "Q" is bad luck because it is
associated with bankruptcy. For instance, when a firm goes
belly up on Nasdaq, a Q is added to the end of its symbol.
But the NYSE did mind. It filed suit against Nasdaq-Amex in
New York State Supreme Court, the first time in recent memory
that one of the exchanges has sued the other. The NYSE claimed
it reserved "Q" in 1995.
The Nasdaq-Amex later said it would use the symbol "QQQ"
for its new product, and the NYSE dropped the suit.
Even so the nation's top securities regulators decided to
step in, aiming to clarify the process of assigning symbols.
On Tuesday morning, NYSE chairman Richard Grasso, NASD
chairman Frank Zarb and Amex chairman Syron met with Arthur
Levitt, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission.
Syron said regulators were "quite interested" in the
process. "This was written under agreements going back decades,
and nobody's around who was a party to it. They're all either
dead or retired," he said.
"We agreed jointly that (the NYSE) would withdraw the
lawsuit and we would use 'QQQ,' but ... we will put in place a
new orderly way so an exchange can't just bank a symbol
indefinitely," Syron said.
Exact details have not yet been worked out, with a proposal
to be submitted in the next 30 days. The idea would be that an
exchange could only file for a symbol if it had a specific
company or stock in mind for the symbol, Syron and Brooks said.
That means if the NYSE, unless it files quickly, could lose its
grip on the "I" and "M".
All that over the letter "Q".
That also sets up the possibility that a company, if it
were to transfer from one exchange to the other, could take its
symbol with it, Syron said.
Currently, the NYSE and the Amex can legally use one, two,
and three-letter symbols, although the Amex has never had a
one-letter symbol in recent ... |
