As per the reports of Bloomberg News, the ChatGPT maker’s agentic AI systems interacted with SEC.gov, Investor.gov, ⁠and publicly available Census.gov data, citing people familiar with the situation.

Responding to the news, an OpenAI spokesperson said the company was “conducting an extensive review of misaligned model activity and notifying organizations when we ‌identify ⁠potential impacts to their systems. We expect to make additional notifications as that work continues.”

As per the Sam Altman-headed venture, the review has mostly ⁠found “routine research tasks” and “some involved government websites,” as the AI models often turn to ⁠them as authoritative sources of public information.

The Frontier AI research lab, which has been in the news for not only its deferred IPO but also the hacking fiascos involving Hugging Face and RubyGems, is still working to understand the full scope of its rogue agent activity, Reuters reported.

As part of the investigation, OpenAI revealed last Friday that its agents had leaked 53 images from ChatGPT users. However, the company refused to comment on whether the images were AI-generated or identified real people.

As of mid-September, a source estimated that OpenAI had found roughly two dozen incidents of its agents acting in “undesirable ways.”

The number of incidents has continued to rise as the Frontier Lab’s teams examine the internal logs of the agents’ activities to discover traces of “previously unknown cases.”

While OpenAI estimates its review potentially taking months to complete given the scale of the work, the company has reportedly notified dozens of third parties about improper activities conducted by its rogue AI agents that escaped the company’s sandbox environment during model testing.

OpenAI has removed most of the leaked images and is actively lobbying hosting providers to eliminate the remaining ones.

“OpenAI’s agents had access to these images because the company relies on anonymized user data for part of its model-training process,” the company, along with its former employees and outside researchers, stated.

“Enterprise data is not eligible for training, while ChatGPT consumers need to opt out of allowing the company to use their data for training,” they stated further.

“Before user posts are used for training, they go through an anonymization process that strips out metadata, names, and other contact information and should make it difficult to trace back to any individual user,” OpenAI said.

“But the practice carries risks because there is a chance that the data may not be fully stripped of personally identifiable information and that it might leak in the course of the model’s work,” sources quoted by Reuters noted.

Australia summons OpenAI and Anthropic bosses

Altman, along with Anthropic boss Dario Amodei, has been asked to appear at an Australian Senate inquiry on AI, the head of the probe said on Sunday, amid the revelation of a rogue OpenAI ‌bot that hacked the country’s health-system database, creating ripples in the Trans-Tasman nation’s regulatory and political circles.

The Medicare breach has already emerged as one of the highest-profile incidents of AI agents accessing external systems outside the US, apart from adding a significant chapter of shame for OpenAI, with the latter becoming the first-ever American AI company to hack into another country’s government website.

Altman and Amodei have been asked to appear at the inquiry, which is to ⁠hold public hearings in the capital Canberra on Thursday, said a spokesperson for Senator Sarah Hanson-Young of the Australian Greens party, who chairs the probe.

The OpenAI agent’s incursion into one of the country’s most utilized government agencies may compel Albanese’s Labor government, which is already at odds with the Donald Trump administration and American Big Tech over its stringent social media ban for teens, to elevate the standards and pursue robust AI-specific legislation.

The Senate inquiry is examining the potential impacts of AI and data centers on Australian communities, industries, and water and energy. It is one of several state and federal probes into AI.

“There are serious questions for Sam Altman to answer about the OpenAI hack of ⁠Australian government websites,” Hanson-Young said in a statement.

“Altman and Amodei must front up, face the Senate’s questions, and have an honest conversation about what effective, lasting regulation of this industry ⁠should look like,” she concluded.

The post Rogue AI agents put OpenAI under pressure over data leaks, US website access appeared first on International Finance.

That works out to exactly 5.00% of the 390,256,808 shares outstanding, and it was worth somewhere between USD 127 million and USD 154 million depending on which day’s closing price you use, because the market moved so sharply once the news broke.

Lucid’s shares closed roughly 22% higher on the day of the disclosure, their strongest level since April 2026. A representative for the Prince confirmed the obvious, which is that the shares were bought during a slump in the price.

The filing was made on a passive basis, with the prince holding sole voting and sole dispositive power over the entire holding and no intention of steering the company’s management.

For anyone who has followed his career for four decades, the pattern is instantly familiar. Prince Alwaleed does not buy stories at their peak. He buys assets when the narrative around them has soured, then waits.

The template that made a reputation
The template was set in 1991, when a young Saudi investor few people in New York had heard of put close to USD 800 million into Citicorp while the American banking system was in the middle of a property loan crisis. That single position went on to define his standing in global finance and earned him a nickname he has never entirely shaken off, the Arabian Warren Buffett.

The same instinct runs through the portfolio he assembled afterwards. Kingdom Holding Company, which he founded in 1980 and listed on Tadawul in 2007, has taken positions across banking, hospitality, media, technology, aviation and real estate.

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Fairmont Raffles Swissotel and full ownership of the Hotel George V in Paris gave him one of the most valuable luxury hospitality footprints in private hands.

Rotana Group and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation gave him reach across Arabic-language media. Positions in Apple, News Corporation, JD.com, Uber, Snap and Twitter, the last of which converted into a holding in X, put him early into the digital economy at a time when very few regional investors were looking that way.

More recently the focus has swung towards artificial intelligence (AI), with Kingdom Holding committing significant capital to Elon Musk’s xAI.

Prince Alwaleed retains 78.1% of Kingdom Holding, with the Public Investment Fund holding the 16.9% stake it acquired in 2022, an arrangement that ties his personal balance sheet directly to the state’s own investment programme without merging the two.

Why Lucid, and why now
The Lucid purchase should be read on two levels.

Commercially, it is a classic Alwaleed entry. The company has had a difficult year, and the prince stepped in while sentiment was at its weakest, which is precisely the point in the cycle at which he has historically been most active.

He has done this before with Citicorp, with Fairmont and with hotel assets bought in the aftermath of downturns, and the discipline has rarely varied.

Strategically, the position carries a weight that goes well beyond its dollar value. The Public Investment Fund, through Ayar Third Investment Company, already holds a majority of Lucid, and Saudi Arabia is preparing to move to full-scale vehicle manufacturing in the kingdom.

Lucid is not simply a portfolio line for Riyadh. It is the centrepiece of an attempt to build an advanced automotive industry inside Saudi Arabia, complete with local assembly, engineering jobs and a supply chain that did not exist a decade ago.

When a senior member of the royal family puts his own name, rather than a sovereign vehicle, on a 5% holding, the message to global markets is unambiguous. The Kingdom’s commitment to this project is not a line item that can be quietly withdrawn.

Building upwards in Jeddah
The Lucid filing was triggered by an acquisition dated 23 July. On exactly the same day, Prince Alwaleed was standing on a construction site on the north side of Jeddah, announcing that Jeddah Tower had reached 430 metres.

That coincidence is worth pausing on. The tower, developed by Jeddah Economic Company with Kingdom Holding as its principal backer, is designed to pass one kilometre and become the tallest building in the world.

Construction restarted in 2025 under a contract worth around SAR 7.2 billion, and the project has since moved past the ninetieth floor with facade cladding and mechanical works under way.

Kingdom Holding has pointed to a workforce of roughly 5,200, an average five-day floor cycle and more than eight million hours worked without a lost-time incident. Completion is currently guided towards 2028.

Jeddah Tower anchors Jeddah Economic City, a development of some 57 million square feet intended to position the Kingdom as a destination for international business and premium tourism.

It will house residences, offices, a Four Seasons hotel and one of the highest observation decks anywhere. For Gulf executives watching capital allocation across the region, the tower is the clearest statement of intent that Kingdom Holding has made in years.

The domestic portfolio and the giving
Closer to home, Kingdom Holding holds a stake of about 27.4% in flynas, the low-cost carrier that completed its Tadawul listing in 2025, and 16.2% of Banque Saudi Fransi. The Kingdom Centre tower in Riyadh remains one of the capital’s landmarks and one of his best-known assets.

Then there is the giving, which the prince has repeatedly described as the part of his work he values most. Alwaleed Philanthropies reports more than USD 5 billion deployed over 45 years, reaching upwards of 1.5 billion beneficiaries across 190 countries.

In January this year, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the organisation announced a fresh USD 15 million commitment to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative alongside the Gates Foundation, funding vaccination campaigns, surveillance and outbreak response over three years.

Bill Gates, Chair of the Gates Foundation, said: “Polio eradication is within sight, but the last mile is the hardest. Alwaleed Philanthropies’ latest commitment is exactly the kind of leadership the world needs to build a future where no family has to live in fear of polio paralyzing their child.”

HRH Princess Lamia Bint Majed Al Saud, Secretary General, Alwaleed Philanthropies, added: “This commitment builds on Alwaleed Philanthropies’ long-standing support for global health and its partnership with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, reinforcing the critical role of philanthropy in addressing some of the world’s most complex public health challenges.”

In July, its Crafting Change project with UNESCO in Tanzania marked its own milestone in cultural skills training.

The lesson for the region
At 71, Prince Alwaleed remains one of the few Gulf investors whose personal conviction still moves a listed share price on two continents in a single session. The Lucid stake will be judged in time by returns.

What it demonstrates today is the discipline that has defined him since 1980, which is a willingness to commit capital at the point of maximum doubt and to stay committed for far longer than the market’s attention span allows.

For the region’s boardrooms, that is the more useful takeaway. Gulf capital has spent the past decade proving it can write very large cheques. The harder skill, and the one on display this week, is knowing when to write them.

The post Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Lucid stake buildup: The art of buying when others are selling appeared first on International Finance.

In a policy briefing on the recapitalisation exercise, the commission disclosed that equity market capitalisation rose from 99.38 trillion naira at the close of 2025 to 129.21 trillion naira by March 31, 2026. The Nigerian Exchange All Share Index (NGX ASI) also surged from 155,613 points at the 2025-end to a historic high of 201,287.78 points by the end of Q1 2026, representing a 29.35% gain within three months.

February 2026 alone delivered a market capitalisation gain of 17.6 trillion naira, the highest single-month increase ever recorded in the history of the African country’s stock market.

SEC said the market also demonstrated structural resilience, despite the extraordinary volume of fresh equity supply that was introduced through public offers and rights issues by banks.

“The Nigerian equity market demonstrated reasonable price discovery throughout the recapitalisation period,” it added.

While the NGX Banking Index declined in mid-2024, as investors priced in dilution risks from anticipated large rights issues, the sector later made a strong comeback as capital was successfully raised and market participants reassessed stronger balance sheets, before expanding the lending capacity of recapitalised institutions.

“The market’s ability to manage valuation complexities in real time reflected growing analytical sophistication among institutional investors, stronger broker research, wider analyst coverage, and improved real-time data systems,” the SEC stated.

Beyond the stock market rally, the banking recapitalisation created broader structural benefits across the African country’s capital market ecosystem.

According to the SEC, about 500,000 new investors participated in various bank public offers between 2024 and 2026, with many being first-time equity investors.

“A significant number of these investors were expected to remain active in the secondary market and future public offerings, thereby deepening market liquidity and broadening the investor base. The exercise rebuilt institutional capacity across investment banks, stock broking firms, registrars, custodians and issuing houses, which handled unprecedented transaction volumes during the recapitalisation process,” the commission remarked.

According to the SEC, Nigeria’s capital market mobilised 4.65 trillion naira over the 24-month recapitalisation period, proving the capabilities of Nigeria’s market infrastructure, investor community and regulatory framework, when it comes to supporting large-scale national transformation.

Director-General of SEC, Dr Emomotimi Agama, said the recapitalisation exercise should be seen not as an isolated success, but as the foundation for a stronger financial market capable of financing Nigeria’s long-term development.

“The recapitalisation has demonstrated that the Nigerian capital market is resilient. It is the Commission’s unwavering determination to ensure that resilience becomes transformation. The story of the 4.65 trillion naira raised should be remembered not as a peak achievement, but as the beginning of a more consequential era in which the capital market plays a central role in financing the nation’s future,” he concluded.

The post Bank recapitalisation creates USD 22.1 billion wealth in Nigeria’s equity market appeared first on International Finance.

Hudson River Trading, Virtu Financial, Jane Street and Jump Trading have entered into discussions with the American multinational investment company BlackRock on providing liquidity for the latter’s anticipated Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), which is awaiting regulatory approval.

Another asset management giant VanEck has joined the ETF craze by reportedly updating its Bitcoin spot Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

VanEck, which offers tailored investment products to a wide range of client bases, has now recognised the need for a regulated and secure way to offer Bitcoin exposure to investors.

Bitwise and Fidelity Investments are also making moves in the Bitcoin ETF territory, realising the tool’s game-changing prospect in 21st century investment portfolios.

Digital asset manager Valkyrie Investments has now amended its spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) filing with United States securities regulators. The venture is now aiming to offer investors an opportunity to invest in Bitcoin-backed common shares.

Global investment firm Franklin Templeton, which has approximately USD 1.45 trillion worth of assets under management, has also filed for a spot bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) with the SEC.

Not Everyone Is Joining The Race

Despite the rising optimism around the Bitcoin ETF, Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley told CNBC that his venture had no plans to follow suit.

“We won’t be pursuing a Bitcoin ETF. It’s just like we don’t use gold as an asset class for our clients. It’s not that people can’t invest in there. We just look at asset classes or, you know, what belongs in a long-term portfolio, what has intrinsic value, has cash flows to it? And those are the asset classes we steer people towards. And so we don’t go towards bitcoin or gold or any other of those stable assets,” the official remarked further.

The SEC Contention

While the SEC is allowing bitcoin futures ETFs, it has been critical of the cryptocurrency part around the project.

However, in August 2023, Grayscale Investments won its court case against the SEC, which had earlier rejected an application to turn the American digital currency asset management company’s over-the-counter traded bitcoin trust into an ETF.

The SEC, which has consistently expressed concerns about potential market manipulation and investor protection in the crypto market, was asked by a Federal Court to reconsider the stance as the latter reportedly emphasised the similarities between Grayscale’s proposal and the already approved Bitcoin futures ETFs.

Investment research firm Galaxy Digital sees Bitcoin ETFs attract over USD 14 billion in assets within the first year of approval, with this figure potentially rising to USD 39 billion by the third year.

In October 2023, crypto-bull Mike Novogratz told CNBC that it would make zero sense for an ETF to be blocked, as inflows into digital asset funds reportedly jumped to their highest weekly level since July 2022.

The post Meet Bitcoin ETF: Wall Street’s new craze appeared first on International Finance.

Anne Mulcahy once confessed the description stems from the fact that she was never conditioned to be the boss of Xerox Corp.

So starting in 1976 and two decades later, it was Mulcahy’s first senior job at Xerox as Vice-President of HR and then, she became the Chief of Staff for former CEO Paul Allaire. At the time, many including Mulcahy did not foresee her window of opportunity with Xerox to transcend boundaries for both: the company and her career spanning the male-dominated corporate force.

Her relentless efforts and sharp organisational skills was in the spotlight, but they did not document the profound experience of a CEO. Of course, most CEOs carry inherent leadership traits. Many of them have a vision. But are they all capable of reviving a debt-heavy company, like Xerox?—Anne Mulcahy was.

In early 2000, Xerox’s poor growth was seeking a positive turnaround. The company’s stock slashed from US$63.69 to US$4.43, prompting some of the brightest minds to quit. The following year, Xerox struck a US$17bn debt for the sixth year in a row. Its previous sales plan was a hard fail and the Mexico unit was under Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, unzipping an unconventional leadership change in the century-old company history: to name Anne Mulcahy as the first woman CEO.

Everything about Mulcahy was unorthodox. She was not the typical MBA graduate the world would second-guess. Mulcahy studied English from Marymount college and devoted 16 years of her work experience in the company sales—not the sort of resume that Wall Street would confide in to reform a tanked corporate giant.

After investing 24 years in the company, her working relationship with Xerox was deep and familiar. For a long time, Mulcahy contemplated on leaving the company to spend quality time with her children. But a chain of events compelled her to stay.

Her predecessor Paul Allaire, who spent 33 years in the company retired as CEO in 2001. In a few months since Allaire, Mulcahy became the President and the CEO-in-waiting. And she was forced to encounter Wall Street’s hard-hitting questions. The chance to encourage IBM CFO Rick Thomson to succeed Allaire seemed more like a responsible choice for columnists of daily news journals to flash a more powerful morning headline. Afterall, Wall Street loved him.

Anyway, in the same year the fated meeting that determined her leadership role took place in the presence of her family, top chief executives, auditors and a few significant others. Mulcahy’s husband Joseph Mulcahy was there accompanied by their two boys in blue blazers, who eagerly awaited to watch their mother create a rewarding moment for them all. During the day, some retirees asked her questions, but nobody evoked an unpleasant boardroom scenario. And in August she was formally announced the CEO of Xerox and chairman in January 2002.

There was nobody more surprised than Mulcahy herself. To this day, her tenure in Xerox inspires many women leaders on the global business front. At the event series View from the Top, 2004-05, recalling her first instinct “I took on this position feeling equal parts of excitement and dread,” she exclaimed.

Director of Corporate Finance Analysis Joe Mancini Jr. recalls his time with Mulcahy, when he assisted her through the company’s US$30bn balance sheet, and talked about debt structure, taxes and currency moves. All of this was done to help her understand the company mired in great financial shock. Mulcahy says, “It was an unusual situation for him—tutoring the CEO.”

In an interview with Discover Your True North, she narrates how the Xerox crisis stoked confusion and anxiety in her: “…it felt like being on the deck of the Titanic. It was a true crisis. To make it worse, my background was not in finances, or even in R&D. I was a salesperson first, and then worked my way into an executive role, but when it came to a crisis of this nature I really needed help.”

After a string of fiscal crisis, Xerox was blanketed in bankruptcy, and was advised to appeal for legal immunity from creditors, but Mulcahy opposed the idea. There was very little hope to bring back its financial stability, let alone firming up its global presence in the long run. In what would quickly become a disaster, she formulated a sensible direction and executed it perfectly.

Undeterred, Mulcahy led discussions with more than 100 top executives to assess their capabilities. “When there are no logical reasons to stay, it’s good to have some illogical ones” she says. “Reasons like ‘I can’t abandon the ship’ or ‘If I left now, what would my team think?’” Before she could reach the finish line, Xerox stock fell to a historic low of US$4.30.

Years later, no one could believe Mulcahy made it. She became the cure not only to end the financial trouble, but also to ignite a new beginning. Xerox, in three years reached US$91mn earnings from loss of US$273mn in 2000. By 2004, the company sales profit climbed US$859mn, and its stocks rose to 75% recovering from a loss of six percent for the Dow Jones Total Stock Market Index, as put in The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania report.

But in this mission Mulcahy was not alone. Another Xerox loyalist, Ursula Burns, the then senior vice-president of corporate strategic services, who started her career with Xerox in 1980 as an intern got roped into the situation to neutralise its complexities. Together, Mulcahy and Burns found themselves waist-deep in the company’s financial dispute.

Picking up on this kind of a catastrophe, Mulcahy spoke to bankers, re-assured customers and informed employees. As Burns remembers, Mulcahy travelled three cities in a day to level the situation. She said, Mulcahy was perseverent: “‘If this place is going to fail, it’s not going to be because Anne Mulcahy slept.’”

Her long-term vision for growth plan squeezed the essence of a true strategist. She prioritised 30% cost cutting, stressed on productivity increase every year, swiftly settled the company’s SEC litigation and emphasized on heavy R&D funding, according to the book Strategic Management.

Mulcahy’s loyal leadership was hard to ignore, especially in a company known for its traditional management. Once, a company CEO’s over-enthusiastic suggestion to rework the culture, angered Mulcahy: “I am the culture. If I can’t figure out how to bring the culture with me, I’m the wrong person for the job,” she replied.

Always straightforward and logical, Mulcahy had the courage to debate on Wall Street’s narrow views. Many CEOs will agree to disagree on her comments. The tension from Wall Street is ‘a huge problem’ that may disable companies in the future, she said in reference to its next quarter’s report: “I talk with a lot of CEOs, and quietly to each other. ‘I’d love to say that I just don’t care and I’m just focused on the long term, but the pressure is extraordinary,’ I hope the next generation of leaders can reshape the way we interact with the financial community.”

As Burns recalls, Mulcahy’s realistic thinking and kind gestures appealed to all employees. For example: she taught them to “save each dollar as if it were your own,”—and finally, there she stood as one of America’s top business leaders, disproving The Wall Street Journal.

“You have to live the mission…love what you do”

Strap: Reflecting how the years in Xerox made Anne Mulcahy an unforgettable CEO

• 1976: Sales Representative

• 1992-1995: Vice-President for Human Resources

• 1997: Chief Staff Officer

• 1998: Corporate Senior Vice-President

• 2001: Chief Executive Officer

• 2002: Chairwoman

The post The unmatched stardom of ‘Accidental CEO’: Anne Mulcahy appeared first on International Finance.

11th August 2013

According to U.S. Financial Regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ponzi schemes are a kind of pyramid scheme which operate on the principle of “Rob Peter to pay Paul”. Fraudulent firms lure investors with large returns and take money from new investors and use them to pay off the earlier investors until no more new recruits and the whole scheme collapses, with the newest investors losing everything. The stratagem is named after Charles Ponzi, a habitual offender and criminal who specialized in financial offences, including forgery of cheques and documents. Ponzi promised investors in New England with a 40 percent investment returns on their investments in just 90 days compared to the 5 percent return offered from state owned banks. He planned to make money by taking advantage of the exchange rates between the dollar and other currencies to buy and sell other international mail coupons at a profit. His scheme met with amazing success and during one such instance he made a whopping $ 1 million in just three hours. William McCasters his P.R agent found that the man who smoke expensive cigarettes in a diamond holder could hardly “add”, based on the tip off from McCasters, regulators raided his office and discovered he did not have a huge quantity of postal reply coupons, he was arrested and jailed.

Modus Operandi

Ponzi once received an envelope containing an International Reply Coupon (IRC), which he had never seen before; he found a weakness in the system which would allow him to make money. The purpose of the postal reply coupon was to allow someone in one country to send it to a correspondent in another country who could use it to pay the postage of a reply. IRC’s were priced at the cost of postage in the country of purchase, but could be exchanged for stamps to cover the cost of postage in the country where redeemed, he could exploit international currency fluctuations by redeeming them at a higher price.  Inflation after World War I had greatly decreased the cost of postage in Italy compared to the U.S. dollar. This meant an IRC purchased in Italy at a very low cost and exchanged in U.S for stamps of higher, which later could be sold. Ponzi analyzed the net profit on these transactions after expenses would be more than 400 percent. This “arbitrage” kind of an arrangement by buying an asset at a lower market and selling it at a higher market was legal. He borrowed money and sent back to his relatives in Italy to buy postal coupons and send it back to him, although he did not meet with huge success, undaunted he started luring investors saying he would double their money in 90 days. Some of his friends and acquaintances attracted by the returns from postal coupons started investing with Ponzi, some of them received $ 750 as interest on initial investments of $ 1,250. The scheme became a huge success with Charles Ponzi amassing over $ 420,000 in 1920. However, the simplest financial analysis showed that Ponzi did not do anything legitimate to generate profit.

End of an Unscrupulous Game- Pulled down by “The Boston Post”

Ponzi’s meteoric rise drew suspicion among the public, financial analysts and the press. His publicity agent and former employee of “The Boston Post” William McMasters unearthed the scam through a series of incriminating documents he found with Charles Ponzi. Charles Ponzi surrendered before federal authorities and was charged with mail fraud and other financial irregularities.

Impact of the Scam

The prosecution of Ponzi had far reaching consequences, the news bought down five banks including The Hanover Trust, his investors ranging from small time businessmen to wealthy people were wiped out receiving less than 30 cents to the dollar. McMasters the whistleblower received $ 5,000 (equivalent of $ 64,000 today) from Grozier for the article along with a bonus of $ 1,000. “The Post” won a “Pulitzer Prize” for the story the following year. McMasters, a lawyer who had served in the American-Spanish war had handled publicity for several political bigwigs including Calvin Coolidge and John F Fitzgerald, he had also managed to secure a promise from the district Attorney where Mr.Grozier lived, to provide the publisher immunity from prosecution “ in case the story turned to be untrue and libelous”

The post History’s Infamous Swindler appeared first on International Finance.

16th July 2013

The term NASDAQ is an American stock exchange and an acronym for National Association of Security Dealers Automated Quotations. It is generally an exchange system that trades and prices numerous stocks. Some investors also use the NASDAQ like an index, with the purpose of measuring how stocks are doing, NASDAQ is the second largest electronic display screen for the equity market within U.S. It holds information for around 3,300 corporations, trades shares and keeps more records for companies than any other trading market within the U.S. Founded in 1971, it lists over 3,000 companies and in terms of share volume, is one of the most heavily used stock markets in the United States. Most of the companies traded in the NASDAQ are technology based mainly due to the dot net boom which happened in the 1990’s.

How does the exchange work?

The exchange is a computerised system where instant quotes are provided for securities because it does not rely on a trading floor, which is the customary way of practicing stock exchange and pricing. The exchange is also incorporated into the over-the-counter market (OTC), therefore when buying and selling stock, a consumer’s broker can enter the quotes and stock quote information for the chosen security into the computer. The computer finds the best price for the stock being considered and the business transaction is completed. The stock pricing and exchange can be performed via telephone or through a corporate’s inventory account, companies which desire to be listed on the NASDAQ system require at least 100,000 publicly held shares and an asset holding of at least $ 1 million. They also need to have a minimum of 500 shareholders in order to be listed. Once the company is approved and listed on the NASDAQ, the company should have a minimum of 300 share holders to remain in their position on the NASDAQ system.

NASDAQ 100 Index

The NASDAQ 100 index includes 100 of the largest domestic and non financial securities listed on the Nasdaq stock market based on market capitalization. The index reflects companies across major industry groups including hardware and software, telecommunications and bio technology. The NASDAQ 100 consists of only securities that are listed under the NASDAQ National Market tier.

How to Trade Your Company Stock in NASDAQ

Investment Banks such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, CitiGroup and JP Morgan help you trade in the NASDAQ. These banks are the ones that distribute the stock for the company that you don’t have to do. The investment banker will provide two options for trading the securities; the first is a commitment that they will guarantee the sale of a certain amount of stocks. The second scenario is a best-efforts agreement, this means that the banks can do their best for selling the securities but offer no guarantee. The investment bank which acts an intermediary between the company and the stock exchange will submit an application to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), this document provides information on the board of directors of the company, promoters, financial holdings, insider holdings, legal issues and what the business proposes to do from the money generated from trading. Next, the company can woo investors while the SEC reviews their application, the more people you get on board to invest in your company, and the more successful you will be. Later, you can discuss with your banker to determine the rate per share, the bank will be able to determine what is a good price based on your earnings. Once the shares are sold, the proceeds will be transferred to your company’s account, so that you can use the funds for expansion and diversification.

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