NASDAQ Stock Market Inc may acquire the Philadelphia Stock Exchange to expand in options trading after losing the race to create the first trans-Atlantic equity market, an official at the Philadelphia exchange said.
The closely held Philadelphia exchange also has approached other markets and is considering an initial public offering, said the official, who declined to be identified before a decision is made. An agreement with NASDAQ is weeks away at the earliest and may not be reached.
NASDAQ chief executive officer Robert Greifeld plans to begin trading options in the third quarter, tapping a market that's growing more than twice as fast as stocks. Buying the nation's No. 3 options exchange could give NASDAQ an advantage over NYSE Euronext, the company formed last week when NYSE Group Inc acquired Paris-based Euronext NV.
"There's a world of opportunity, but we're not going to neglect domestically," Greifeld said in a February interview after being asked whether he would consider buying an options market such as the bourse in Philadelphia, where the first US stock exchange was established in 1790.
"There are opportunities for us in many different ways," he said.
NASDAQ spokeswoman Bethany Sherman declined to comment on the discussions, which were reported late on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal. NASDAQ and the Philadelphia exchange agreed to merger terms in 1998 before breaking off the planned combination the following year.
The Philadelphia Stock Exchange is 90 percent owned by a group of six brokerage firms, including New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co and Morgan Stanley. The transactions in which they acquired that interest valued the exchange at US$75 million in 2005.
More exchanges are offering investors both stock and options trading to tap growing demand from investors for derivatives that can boost returns on equities. The Chicago Board Options Exchange and the International Securities Exchange, the two largest US options markets, introduced stock exchanges and NYSE Euronext entered the business last year with its purchase of Archipelago Holdings Inc.
Equity options are the right, without the obligation, to buy or sell stocks at a set price by a certain date. Options on stock indexes such as the NASDAQ 100 are among the most popular.
Trading at the Philadelphia exchange rose 33 percent in the first quarter, faster than the whole US options market, as new contracts on currencies geared for retail investors and exchange-traded funds lured investors. Last year, the exchange started trading futures contracts on interest rates.
Greifeld, 49, said in February that NASDAQ planned to capture 20 percent of all US options trading by 2010. The Philadelphia exchange currently has a 13.4 percent share, according to Chicago-based Options Clearing Corp.
NASDAQ made a failed attempt last year to acquire the London Stock Exchange (LSE), Europe's biggest equity market. NYSE Group CEO John Thain, 51, countered with a bid for Euronext and trumped Greifeld when the LSE rebuffed NASDAQ's offer earlier this year.
Greifeld said in February that he wasn't deterred by the disappointment in Europe and "we will be involved with transactions in 2007."
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
CALL FOR DIALOGUE: The president-elect urged Beijing to engage with Taiwan’s ‘democratically elected and legitimate government’ to promote peace President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday named the new heads of security and cross-strait affairs to take office after his inauguration on May 20, including National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to be the new defense minister and former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) as minister of foreign affairs. While Koo is to head the Ministry of National Defense and presidential aide Lin is to take over as minister of foreign affairs, Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) would be retained as the nation’s intelligence chief, continuing to serve as director-general of the National Security Bureau, Lai told a news conference in Taipei. Koo,
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues