The Members Exchange (MEMX), a new US stock exchange that counts some of Wall Street’s biggest banks as its backers launched today (September 21). The MEMX started trading seven symbols upon launch including Alphabet, ExxonMobil and BlackBerry and then the following week will provide all National Market System symbols.
Stock exchanges, which act as a marketplace for buyers and sellers of securities, make money from a number of different fees: transaction fees on trades; listing fees for listing a company on the exchange and market data fees.
Investment banks and financial services firms have raised concerns about the impact of high fees charged by existing stock exchanges, particularly for their market-data feeds.
“We’ve been quite vocal about the rising cost of data,” Jason Sippel, global head of equities and prime services at JPMorgan, told the Wall Street Journal.
“Lowering data costs will benefit all of our clients.”
MEMX executed their first trade at 7:48:43 AM, 100 shares of ED at $73.90. Over the course of the day, MEMX traded 60,957 shares on 857 executions and had 25 firms execute trades.  All in all, it was a successful first day and another important step in theirr journey to transform the exchange landscape.Â
MEMX stated:
We greatly appreciate all the engagement from our members.  While we are only trading seven symbols, the reason we go through a phased rollout like this is so we can identify how the system performs in a variety of conditions and with gradually increased activity.
Today was incredibly helpful in those efforts. Getting through our first settlement cycle will be an important next step. We look forward to expanding our symbol universe. But, first and foremost, we are committed to minimizing any potential market disruption.Â
