What is the American Stock Exchange (AMEX)?

Published by Thomas Herold in Laws & Regulations, Investments

'American Stock Exchange (AMEX)' is explained in detail and with examples in the Investments edition of the Herold Financial Dictionary, which you can get from Amazon in Ebook or Paperback edition.

The AMEX is the acronym for the American Stock Exchange. This exchange proves to be the third biggest such stock market in all of the United States when trading volume is considered, after the NYSE and the NASDAQ national exchanges. Located in the American financial center of New York, the AMEX carries around ten percent of every security that is listed within the United States. In the past, it had a much larger market share of traded securities.

The origins of the AMEX lie before it was called the American Stock Exchange. In 1953, the New York Curb Exchange became known as the AMEX. This exchange proved to be a mutual organization that the members owned. In decades past, the American Stock Exchange had an important position as a major competitor for the New York Stock Exchange. This role gradually fell to the rising NASDAQ stock exchange.

Back on the seventeenth of January in 2008, the NYSE Euronext exchange announced its intentions to buy out the American Stock Exchange in consideration of $260 million in NYSE stock. They completed the transaction on the first of October in 2008. NYSE originally intended to integrate the AMEX exchange into its Alternext European small cap exchange. They first renamed it the NYSE Alternext U.S. By March of 2009, NYSE had scrapped this plan and renamed it the NYSE Amex Equities exchange.

The overwhelming majority of AMEX trading these days is done in small cap company stocks, derivatives, and exchange traded funds. These are niches that the AMEX exchange carved out and maintained for itself despite the rising allure of the newer NASDAQ in the 1990’s. The AMEX observes regular trading session hours running from 9:30 in the morning to 4:00 in the afternoon on Monday through Friday. The exchange is closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and all holidays that the exchange announces in advance.

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The term 'American Stock Exchange (AMEX)' is included in the Investments edition of the Herold Financial Dictionary, which you can get from Amazon in Ebook or Paperback edition.