The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations is the abbreviation for NASDAQ. The NASDAQ is an American stock exchange, but still it is not completely American because there are both U.S companies and non U.S companies listed in this stock exchange. The NASDAQ is the largest electronic screen based trading market among all the American trading markets. At present there are about 3,200 companies listed in the NASDAQ and this stock market has the highest trading volume done in a working hour more than any other stock exchange in the world.

The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) started the NASDAQ Stock Exchange in the year 1971. But they sold their shares, they held in NASDAQ between the years 2000 and 2001 due to their personal reasons.

It was then operated by the NASDAQ OMX Group and is controlled and monitored by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that was commissioned by the American government. The NASDAQ stock exchange in the New York City is the second largest stock exchange in the United States.

The NASDAQ OMX group also operates and controls almost eight stock exchanges in Europe and holds one-third of the shares in the Dubai Stock Exchange.

The major advantage in the NASDAQ is that it allows double listing of a company with that of the Dubai Stock Exchange or any other U.S Stock Exchanges. Due to these advantages it holds an edge over the NYSE-Euro next group in attracting new companies for listing in its stock exchange.

Unlike the other stock markets, the NASDAQ has a pre market session and a post market session. The pre market session is between 7:00 am and 9:30 am and the normal market session between 9:30 am and 4:00 pm and then the post market session is from 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm.

The NASDAQ Composite is a Stock Market Index is the indicator of the growth of the companies listed in the NASDAQ stock market.
The NASDAQ was started with a base value of 100 points in the year 1971. If and only if a company stock is listed in the NASDAQ, the company will be eligible to be included in the Nasdaq Composite Index.

There is security type’s like:

• Tracking Stocks
• American Depositary Receipts (ADRs)
• Common Stock
• Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
• Shares of Beneficial Interest (SBIs)
• Limited Partnership Interests
• Ordinary Shares

Though the NASDAQ was started way before 1971, it took nearly twenty four years to reach the 1000 points mark (that is, On July 17, 1995) and just took another five years to reach the 5000 points mark. It was in March 10, 2000 when the NASDAQ has gone up till 5048.62 points, at the same day it reached an intra-day high of 5132.52 points. But in the recent years the NASDAQ has a bear market and the Nasdaq Composite Index has come down gradually in the recent years. The NASDAQ has been down to as all-time low of 54 points in year 1974 October.