New Stock on the Street

photo courtsey: NYSE

Today was a historic day at Wall Street. For last 213 years, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was owned only by its members (Currently there are 1366 of them). After the exchange completed its merger with Archipelago, it decided to go public as NYSE Group Inc. and today it debuted in its own exchange with the ticker symbol NYX.

So, the chief executive officer, John Thain rang the opening bell today morning and was joined on the exchange's podium by NYSE Group Chairman Marshall Carter and Catherine Kinney and Jerry Putnam, co-chief operating officers. Jerry Putnam had been the chief executive of Archipelago.

At the end of the day the stock was up +15.75$ to close at $80, a gain of about 24.5%. Should you buy this stock at this level? Our advice is to avoid it for the time-being. The valuation is not clear and it seems there is lot of hype here. Many people will, of course, make money out of the volatility that would follow due to a lack of clear picture but usually these people are those who have lot of money and put only a part in this risky game (Keep in mind what John Thain said today: "As a practice, the NYSE Group won't be providing earnings forecasts to Wall Street analysts").

If you have limited resources, it's better to watch its movement from outside. You can be sure some expert managers of your mutual funds or ETFs would surely buy the stock at a well-researched opportune moment of time.