SEC Releases Report on Order Execution Quality

Washington, DC, January 12, 2001 - The SEC’s Office of Economic Analysis released a report comparing the costs of trading equity securities on the Nasdaq market with the trading of listed securities on the New York Stock Exchange. The report is part of the SEC’s ongoing examination of fragmentation in the securities markets and its possible effects on the quality of execution of investor orders.

The report, which examined customer orders for selected stocks during a one-week period last June, compared Nasdaq and the NYSE on the basis of execution costs and time to execute trades.