“We are committed to delivering the most comprehensive suite of market-intelligence tools to our listed issuers,” says Joe Mecane, NYSE Euronext (NYX) executive vice president and chief administrative officer, U.S. Markets. “The NYSE Market Access Center helps NYSE companies manage their investor-relations strategies in the best way possible.”
The new Internet-based platform leverages the Exchange’s capital-markets expertise and blends it with real-time data to help issuers access and interpret an array of factors influencing activity, including broad market trends. In addition to tapping their NYSE MAC Advisor for live insight and analysis, issuers can sign on to MAC Alerts, an electronic alerts system, to build an integrated, around-the-clock market-intelligence solution.
“NYSE Market Access Center is designed for the busy chief financial officer who requires the flexibility of online access to breaking news and trading information,” says Theresa Molloy, NYSE Euronext vice president of corporate client services. “Combine that with analysis and guidance provided by our NYSE MAC Advisors and our customers can better navigate through today’s dynamic markets with a 360-degree view at any time, from virtually anywhere.”
With insight steeped in facts and experience, NYSE MAC Advisors provide up-to-the-minute details about events that may be impacting trading and valuation. This team of seasoned market professionals — supported by much of the industry’s most comprehensive real-time data, tools and analytics — gives issuers a front-row seat to the markets and the trading of their securities. NYSE MAC Advisors, adds Molloy, provide analyses in the context of primary markets and alternative trading systems. “NYSE MAC integrates human expertise with technology, combining automated tools with the breadth and depth of experience,” she says.
NYSE Market Access Center provides news, trading activity and expert advice in real time.
For example, Molloy explains, an IR officer might get a pre-market trading alert that 40,000 shares of her company’s stock had just changed hands at a price that was up 3 percent from the previous day’s close. For more color on the market and what might be affecting the stock, she can call her NYSE MAC Advisor. This expert can tap a number of resources, including Bloomberg and market intelligence provider StreetAccount, as well as trading professionals working on the NYSE Trading Floor, to determine what may be influencing the activity.
“If there’s anything unusual about the movement in my stock, I will get a call,” says Peter Cunningham, Astoria Financial Corp.’s (AF) first vice president of investor relations. “They are very proactive, providing just the right amount of interaction. It’s a good adjunct to the market information we get from our designated market marker.”
Complementing NYSE MAC Advisors is the automated NYSE MAC Alerts system, which delivers real-time updates about not only stock price and volume swings and unusual pre- and post-market trading activity, but also key developments such as rating changes, earnings announcements, additions and deletions to major indices, M&A transactions and management changes.
Powered by Dow Jones News, NYSE MAC Alerts cater to the issuer, as opposed to the trader community. Investor-relations officers, CFOs and other executives can build customized watch lists for their stocks and those of their peer group and have personalized alerts sent to their desktops or wireless devices.
For example, the system can flag large block trades based on user-determined volume thresholds. In fact, explains Molloy, nearly 20 different types of alerts are available, not just for an issuer’s own stock but for as many as 24 additional ticker symbols, including non-NYSE-listed stocks. And users can set and adjust thresholds at any time. By year end, NYSE plans to add alerts related to moves in the options market, technical trading analysis and economic indicators such as housing market stats and gross domestic product.
Users create their customized alerts through NYSEnet.com, a password-protected Website for listed companies. This site’s advanced online tools provide real-time, proprietary market information and deliver insights into a company’s distinctive trading activity and institutional share-ownership. This comprehensive dashboard of information, which comes at no cost to NYSE-listed issuers, enhances transparency and keeps issuers connected to the market. NYSEnet, explains Molloy, offers multiple users per issuer the resources for timely and insightful communication with investors, board members and senior management. NYSE MAC is the latest addition to that array of resources.
“With the proliferation of available data, we wanted to enable our customers to streamline information so that they receive only those alerts most important to them,” adds Molloy.
To develop the alerts, the NYSE worked with customers to determine needs, and with partners to maximize the capabilities of this offering. Along with Cunningham, one of the first users in the test pilot was Regina Nethery, Humana Inc.’s (HUM) vice president of investor relations. “It’s terrific for getting my attention when I’m multitasking, like so many of us have to, and alerting me to something happening with my stock, or a competitor’s, that I need to be aware of. I don’t have to stop to look at my screen all the time; an e-mail will trigger me to stop and go look at the activity that I’ve defined as important,” says Nethery, who gets the alerts via e-mail on her PC, or Blackberry when she’s not at her desk. She adds that it’s “a very helpful tool particularly when I’m on the road and I’ve got 10 minutes between meetings.”
The feature she says she likes most is the product’s flexibility. “I can set one level for my own stock, a slightly higher level for my peers, even a third level for another group of peers,” Nethery explains. “And when the markets get crazy and I’m getting a lot of alerts, I can scale it back, then ramp it up when the market settles down. You can turn it off and on at your discretion.”
IR Officers get personalized alerts on their desktops or wireless devices.
Cunningham agrees: “It’s a very flexible system, and that’s one of the beauties of it. It is a real-time communications center that allows me to provide management with the most current news on our company as well as peer companies, and that’s a great tool to have. I’m never caught off guard by market-moving developments. This is especially important when I’m interacting with shareholders.”
NYSE MAC was rolled out as a pilot to issuers who participated in the test program and is now expanding to the broad universe of NYSE-listed companies. Going forward, says Molloy, NYSE MAC will be periodically enhanced with new tools and services so that companies are provided the most current market-intelligence technology at their fingertips. NYSE MAC uses a search engine and real-time data feed developed by SunGard Data Systems, which also fully hosts the service, providing maintenance and support and ensuring 24-7 availability. “The product has improved continuously since the pilot program,” says Cunningham, who recommends it to other NYSE companies. “It is as robust a service that listed companies can get. I find it very useful, very efficient and very cost-effective. It’s perfect for my needs.”
This article includes information that may constitute “forward-looking statements,” as it is based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please visit the cautionary note to read more.