NASDAQ

The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the largest electronic screen-based equity securities trading market in the United States and second-largest by market capitalization in the world. As of January 13, 2011, there are 2,872 listings. The NASDAQ has more trading volume than any other electronic stock exchange in the world.

EASDAQ

EASDAQ (European Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation System) was a European electronic securities exchange headquartered in Brussels. Founded originally as a European equivalent to NASDAQ, it was purchased by NASDAQ in 2001 and became NASDAQ Europe. In 2003, it shut down operations as a result of the burst of the dot-com bubble. In 2007, NASDAQ Europe was revived as Equiduct and is currently operating under Börse Berlin.^[6]

[edit] Quote availability

NASDAQ quotes are available at three levels:

• Level 1 shows the highest bid and lowest offer—the inside quote.
• Level 2 shows all public quotes of market makers together with information of market dealers wishing to sell or buy stock and recently executed orders.^[7]
• Level 3 is used by the market makers and allows them to enter their quotes and execute orders.

Trading schedule

NASDAQ has a pre-market session from 7:00am to 9:30am, a normal trading session from 9:30am to 4:00pm and a post-market session from 4:00pm to 8:00pm (all times in ET)