NASDAQ: NASD board approves pilot program to reduce market data fees for individual investors.

M2 PRESSWIRE-26 March 1999-NASDAQ: NASD board approves pilot program to reduce market data fees for individual investors (C)1994-99 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

RDATE:260399

Washington, D.C. -- The National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (NASD), today announced that its Board has approved a one year pilot program that will reduce fees for real-time market data utilized by individual investors.

Individual investors have entered the market dramatically in recent years, due largely to growing popularity of the Internet and on-line trading.

"We have consistently supported the broadest dissemination of information to individual investors," said Alfred R. Berkeley, III, President of The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. "Reducing fees for real time quotes and trade reports demonstrates our commitment clearly and unequivocally. These price reductions should benefit individual investors directly."

Under the program, the per-query fee -- which Nasdaq charges for a single piece of market data -- will be reduced by 50 percent, from $.01 to $.005 per quote. The non-professional user fee -- a charge subscriber services often impose for unlimited access -- will also be cut in half, from $4 to $2 per month.

The NASD is the largest securities-industry, self-regulatory organization in the United States and parent organization of NASD Regulation, Inc., and The Nasdaq-Amex Market Group, Inc. Through its regulatory subsidiary, the NASD develops rules and regulations, provides a dispute resolution forum, and conducts regulatory reviews of member activities for the protection and benefit of investors. Through The Nasdaq-Amex Market GroupSM, the NASD operates The Nasdaq Stock Market and the American Stock Exchange (Amex). The NASD oversees the nation's 5,600 brokerage firms and more than half a million registered brokers. Consumers can contact the NASD to obtain the disciplinary and work histories, as well as other selected background information, of member firms and individual brokers or to get information on how to lodge a complaint.

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