NASDAQ Closing Cross Calculates U.S. Russell Indexes for the Eleventh Consecutive Year for Russell's Annual Reconstitution

NEW YORK, June 27, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ) today announced the NASDAQ Closing Cross was used for the eleventh consecutive year to rebalance NASDAQ-listed securities in the entire family of U.S. Russell indexes during their annual reconstitution. Approximately 810.6 million shares representing $17.9 billion were executed in the NASDAQ Closing Cross in 575 milliseconds across some 2,304 NASDAQ-listed stocks. NASDAQ official closing prices (NOCPs) determined by the NASDAQ Closing Cross are widely used throughout the industry, by Russell Investments, Standard & Poor's, Dow Jones, and mutual funds across the country. The NASDAQ Closing Cross mechanism provides market participants with transparency and consistent prices with the dissemination of imbalances, indicative and likely clearing prices every five seconds via the Net Order Imbalance Indicator. NASDAQ OMX's INET technology platform processes accurate closing prices for the industry in microseconds.  "NASDAQ OMX takes pride in its performance engineering and the ability of our electronic trading platforms to handle large volumes and high velocity quickly and efficiently," said Tom Wittman, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Equities at NASDAQ OMX.   He added, "As the official platform for NASDAQ-listed stocks in the Russell reconstitution, the NASDAQ Closing Cross generated accurate closing prices during one of the heaviest trading sessions of the year." The Closing Cross brings together the buy and sell interest in specific NASDAQ, NYSE and NYSE Amex stocks and executes all shares for each stock at a single price, one that reflects the true supply and demand for these securities. All nationally-listed securities are eligible for the NASDAQ Closing Cross. The Russell U.S. Indexes include only common stocks incorporated in the U.S., its territories, and certain countries or regions offering U.S. companies operational, tax, political or other financial benefits. All Russell U.S. Indexes are subsets of the Russell 3000® Index, which represents approximately 98% of the U.S. equity market. Russell U.S. Indexes allow investors to track current and historical market performance by specific market segment (large cap/small cap) or investment style (growth/value/defensive/dynamic). Today, more than $5.2 trillion in assets are benchmarked to the Russell Indexes.