NEW YORK, Nov. 11, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: NDAQ ) today announced that NASDAQ OMX's Mutual Fund Quotation Service (MFQS) is now pricing structured notes and market-linked certificates of deposits (CD's) in a groundbreaking initiative to provide enhanced price transparency for issuers and investors.
"NASDAQ OMX is constantly striving to enhance market transparency so it is collaborating with the leadership of the Structured Products Association to provide valuation data for structured notes and other structured products to millions of investors and market participants," said Jeff Kimsey, Vice President, NASDAQ OMX Global Information Services. "With the addition of structured products to our world-class Mutual Fund Quotation System, we are providing a more complete view of assets across multiple classes."
NASDAQ OMX has an exclusive agreement to work with the SPA to promote and accelerate the growth of SEC-registered structured products eligible for dissemination through NASDAQ OMX's MFQS. This information will be available to millions of investors around the globe at no additional charge.
MFQS is a renowned pricing system that facilitates the collection and dissemination of daily price, dividends and capital distributions data for mutual funds, money market funds, unit investment trusts (UITs), annuities and structured products.
"As a well-established and widely-accepted pricing mechanism, MFQS is positioned to provide a unique opportunity for structured products to compete with other investments," stated Keith Styrcula, chairman of the Structured Products Association. "By utilizing the same pricing formats as mutual funds and UITs, MFQS will permit market participants around the world to easily access pricing on notes and CDs in the system."
As is the case for Mutual Funds, Closed-End Funds and UITs, providing pricing to MFQS is purely voluntary on the part of issuers and sponsors. Close to 100 percent of all U.S. mutual funds are priced daily via MFQS.
Structured products are an essential investment class in the U.S. Structured products encompass a range of financial instruments, such as securities that derive their value from and provide exposure to various asset classes. These asset classes include single securities, baskets of securities, indexes, options, commodities, debt issuances and/or foreign currencies.
About NASDAQ OMX Group
The inventor of the electronic exchange, The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc., fuels economies and provides transformative technologies for the entire lifecycle of a trade - from risk management to trade to surveillance to clearing. In the U.S. and Europe, we own and operate 26 markets including 3 clearinghouses and 5 central securities depositories supporting equities, options, fixed income, derivatives, commodities, futures and structured products. Able to process more than 1 million messages per second at sub-55 microsecond average speeds with 99.99% uptime, our technology drives more than 70 marketplaces in 50 developed and emerging countries into the future, powering 1 in 10 of the world's securities transactions. Our award-winning data products and worldwide indexes are the benchmarks in the financial industry. Home to approximately 3,300 listed companies worth $7 trillion in market cap whose innovations shape our world, we give the ideas of tomorrow access to capital today. Welcome to where the world takes a big leap forward, daily. Welcome to the NASDAQ OMX Century. To learn more, visit www.nasdaqomx.com . Follow us on Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/NASDAQ ) and Twitter http://www.twitter.com/nasdaqomx ). (Symbol: NDAQ and member of S&P 500). ( http://www.twitter.com/nasdaqomx ). (Symbol: NDAQ and member of S&P 500)
About the Structured Products Association
The Structured Products Association is the ten-year-old, not-for-profit trade association for the American structured investments industry. Comprised of nearly twenty thousand professionals worldwide, the SPA advocates for the structured products investment class among regulators, media representatives, financial advisors and investors. The SPA promotes investor education as a core mission of the industry.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
The matters described herein contain forward-looking statements that are made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about NASDAQ OMX's Mutual Fund Quotation Service and other products and offerings. We caution that these statements are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties or other factors beyond NASDAQ OMX's control. These factors include, but are not limited to factors detailed in NASDAQ OMX's annual report on Form 10-K, and periodic reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to release any revisions to any forward-looking statements.
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Media Contacts: Wayne Lee, NASDAQ OMX +1-301-978-4875
