American Stock Exchange

NYSE Euronext, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, agreed Thursday to buy the American Stock Exchange for $260 million to capture a bigger share of the fast-growing markets for trading options and exchange-traded funds. Under the deal, members of the 165-year-old Amex would receive shares of NYSE Euronext as well as proceeds from the sale of the Amex building in Manhattan.

The American Stock Exchange, the third-largest U.S. equity market, has hired Morgan Stanley to help it become a for-profit shareholder-owned company, the first step toward a possible public stock offering. Morgan Stanley will also study "potential strategic future initiatives" for the market, the exchange said in a statement Thursday. Members of the 164-year-old marketplace would still have to approve any plan to convert their memberships or seats into shares.

The future of the American Stock Exchange looked bright when Ira Koondel arrived in 1969. A bull market was in full swing and the Amex was packed with traders. So many people worked on the main floor that the exchange had to open an upper level with bleacher seats a few years later. Another bull market is roaring today, but life at the Amex is quite different. Traders have slowly left or been fired. The bleachers are all but abandoned.

The American Stock Exchange on Thursday launched the first exchange-traded fund that tracks U.S. initial public stock offerings. The First Trust IPOX-100 index fund consists of the 100 largest companies in the U.S. IPOX composite index, which includes 447 companies whose shares were recently offered to the public for the first time. Stocks are eligible to be included from their seventh to 1,000th day of trading.

The major U.S. stock exchanges will be closed Tuesday to mark the death of former President Ford, leaving stock trading suspended for an unusually long four consecutive days. The New York Stock Exchange on Friday joined the Nasdaq Stock Market in saying it would not open Tuesday. The closing is unusual because trading was already slated to be shut Monday for New Year's Day and U.S.

Salvatore Sodano, the American Stock Exchange's chairman and chief executive for the last four years, announced plans to retire Thursday, just 10 days after NASD Inc. sold the exchange back to its members. The fate of Sodano has long been the subject of speculation. In November, Sodano was one of four executives who received notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission that it might bring civil charges for regulatory lapses.

Barclays, the biggest manager of exchange-traded funds, said Wednesday that it would move the listing of all but one of its funds to the New York Stock Exchange and the electronic Archipelago Exchange from the American Stock Exchange. The change bolsters the NYSE's expansion beyond common stock trading and marks a setback for Amex, which listed the first ETF in 1993.

American Stock Exchange members voted to repurchase the marketplace from the National Assn. of Securities Dealers, ending five years of NASD ownership marked by profit declines and arguments over finances. Eighty-two percent of 618 seat holders who voted approved the deal, which triggers a payment of $22 million by the NASD to Amex Chairman and Chief Executive Salvatore Sodano, 48. A judge two days ago dismissed a request by some exchange members to delay the vote.

Market regulators warned three top executives of the American Stock Exchange of possible civil charges against them over a probe related to the handling of options orders, the exchange said Thursday. The executives, including Amex Chairman and Chief Executive Salvatore Sodano, received so-called Wells notices from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which allow recipients to explain why the agency should not file civil charges against them.