The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. said Wednesday that it will begin a new process for pre-market open trading and price discovery in late September.

The Nasdaq Opening Cross is a centralized order facility that will provide market participants and investors with a highly transparent and accurate single opening price in Nasdaq-listed securities. It says that the market open is one of the most active points of the trading day with the market processing more than 15,000 messages per second.

The Opening Cross will initially launch with two test securities and then expand to live stocks. Similar to the Closing Cross, Nasdaq will disseminate detailed information about any order imbalances during the last several minutes leading into the open. At 9:30 a.m. ET, the Nasdaq Market Center will then execute the orders at a single price to establish the Nasdaq opening price. Nasdaq will disseminate the Opening Cross price as the Nasdaq Official Opening Price for those issues included in the cross.

Starting in September, Nasdaq will conduct a series of regional forums across the country to educate the trading community about the opening enhancements.

Nasdaq will release more information and a schedule of the forums next month.

“Everyone who relies on the most accurate pricing possible will benefit from the Nasdaq Opening Cross,” said Chris Concannon, executive vice president of Nasdaq Transaction Services. “This electronic opening process will allow all investors to come together and discover a single price that reflects true supply and demand. The new Nasdaq open will offer superior transparency leading into the open and the opportunity for everyone to use that insight to meet their trading and investment needs.”

http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader/openclose/openfactsheet.pdf.