Overview
The NASDAQ OMX Group Inc., a New York-based holding company, is an exchange operator and parent of the Nasdaq Stock Market in the U.S. It supports the development and operations of more than 60 exchanges in more than 50 countries. As NASDAQ OMX Nordic, it runs exchanges in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. As NASDAQ OMX Baltic, it runs exchanges in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. It also operates NASDAQ OMX Europe, a multilateral trading facility based in London. The company delivers trading, exchange technology, securities listing, and public company services. Its offerings include trading across multiple asset classes, market data products, financial indexes, capital formation solutions, financial services and market technology products and services.
A pioneer in electronic trading, Nasdaq is the largest U.S. electronic stock market. It's regulated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. In the early 1990s, Bernard Madoff had been a prominent marketmaker and chairman of the exchange. Its dramatic MarketSite video tower overlooks Manhattan's Times Square. Among its recent challenges is stemming the loss of U.S. market share to other electronic exchanges and marketplaces.
The company's derivatives clearinghouse business, International Derivatives Clearing Group, recently began clearing interest-rate-swap contracts. With the International Exchange St. Petersburg, it is looking to become the first Western operator of an exchange in Russia. The company is also expanding into trading emissions contracts designed to reduce the global output of greenhouse gases, creating a new Nasdaq OMX Commodities unit. Another project in the works is a private-market exchange where private company shareholders could sell their stock, similar to PORTAL, which Nasdaq launched two years ago to allow qualified investors to trade unregistered securities.
Recruiting
The company recently added the Boston and Philadelphia stock exchanges, as well as the Nordic exchanges. While it has shed jobs in Europe, it has plans to expand in the U.S.