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Wednesday, March 5, 2003

UTP Vendor Alert #2003 - 16
NASDAQ Announces Revised Schedule for Release of the “M” Sale Condition Modifier; NASDAQ Official Closing Price Implementation Date Rescheduled

On Tuesday, March 4, 2003, the Unlisted Trading Privileges (UTP) Committee approved the use of the new “M” sale condition value on the UTP Trade Data FeedSM (UTDFSM). Pending final approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the “M” sale condition is expected to go into production on April 14, 2003.

Background

As described in detail in UTP Vendor Alert #2002-161, the Securities Information Processor (SIP) populates the consolidated closing price in the UTDF Closing Trade Summary to reflect the final last-sale-eligible transaction received from a UTP participant. Currently, the SIP also populates the closing price for each market center using the same process.

Contingent upon regulatory approval, the SIP will add a new sale condition modifier of “M" to denote the official market center closing price transaction. Trade messages with the M sale condition will update the market center high, low, and last sale prices, but will not impact the current consolidated trade processing rules or the individual market center close of any participant that chooses not to use the .M modifier. UTDF subscribers will need to revise their data processing code to accept and process the new M code accordingly.

Please click on the View/Print button below to access the updated specification document. Please note that this document contains an appendix providing detailed version control information.

UTDF Subscriber Interface Specifications Version 2.2a

As announced in NASDAQ Vendor Alert #2003-6, NASDAQ® plans to utilize the M sale condition to disseminate its market center specific closing price called the NASDAQ Official Closing Price (NOCP) for all NASDAQ National Market® and SmallCap securities using the M sale condition modifier. NASDAQ plans to begin disseminating the NOCP on April 14, 2003. In addition, The American Stock Exchange and The Cincinnati Stock Exchange also plan to utilize the M sale condition in the relatively near future. These plans will be further described in forthcoming vendor alerts.

Please see NASDAQ Vendor Alert #2003-6 for more information on the NOCP.

Testing Opportunities

In support of this release, NASDAQ will provide the following testing opportunities for direct-connect subscribers:

Testing Opportunity Dates Description of Test
Evening Test
Transmissions		 Beginning Monday,
February 24, 2003;
to continue through
April 11, 2003.		 A test file will be recorded in the NASDAQ Test Facility (NTF) to be replayed in the evenings from 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., Eastern Time (ET) to all UTDF direct connect subscribers. No registration is required to participate in evening testing.
User Acceptance
Tests (UATs)		 Saturday, March 22, 2003,
Saturday, March 29, 2003,
Saturday, April 5, 2003 and
Saturday, April 12, 2003.		 NASDAQ will conduct production tests on select Saturdays. UTP and NASDAQ market participants will be invited to enter data to test the new functionality. As it is generated, NASDAQ will disseminate the test data via UTDF and other data feeds. Advance registration is requested for the UATs.

NASDAQ welcomes feedback from its subscribers during the testing phase of the UTDF release. To comment on the test data or to register for the Saturday UATs, please send an e-mail to MKTDATASVC@nasdaq.com.

As originally announced in UTP Vendor Alert #2002-161, UTDF is scheduled to begin disseminating total consolidated volume via the Category V – Type C message. Please note that this release will also take place on April 14, 2003, to correspond to the production release of the M modifier on UTDF.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Questions about UTDF should be directed to NASDAQ Market Data Distribution at (301) 978-5307 or MKTDATASVC@nasdaq.com.