New York Stock Exchange chairman Dick Grasso and Nasdaq chairman Frank Zarb have spent the past several years fighting over listings, volume numbers and trading rules.
By Hall Lux, with Jenny Anderson, Rich Blake, Lucy Conger, Justin Dini, Kevin Hamlin, Jeffrey Kutler and Justin Schack
December 2000
Institutional Investor Magazine
This month the competition switched to canapés and holiday punch when both markets scheduled holiday fêtes for the press on the night of December 1. Until recently, the NYSE affair - complete with cocktails on the trading floor, dinner and dancing to live jazz in the exchange’s wood-paneled, 19th-century luncheon club - was the only game in town for attention-starved financial hacks. But Nasdaq now boasts a high-profile soirée of its own, in its slick MarketSite broadcasting center in Times Square. Both marts say the calendar conflict is purely coincidental. “We always hold our party on the first Friday in December,” says an NYSE spokesman. “This year they’re having theirs on the same night. It’s just one of those things.” Nasdaq, up against decades of tradition, appeared to be attempting to lower expectations. “Our affair is going to be relatively low-key in comparison to their celebration,” says a spokesman.
