The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. has announced plans to launch the Nasdaq Official Opening Price and enhance the current Nasdaq Official Closing Price, pending approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

To make these changes, Nasdaq will build a centralized order facility that will provide a single price for both the open and close (to be called Nasdaq Cross); and, it will work with market participants to build the proper interfaces to the facility.

“Creating opening and closing prices that are the result of bringing together all significant orders ensures that Nasdaq’s official opening and closing prices are tradeable, accessible, and indicative of the deep liquidity in the market,” the exchange says.

“A number of important developments have contributed to the decision to implement these changes including the shift in liquidity concentration resulting from the conversion to decimals and increased interest in index-related products, making the open and close key indicators of valuation,” said Adena Friedman, executive vice president of Nasdaq Data Products, in a news release.

In redesigning the market open, Nasdaq will introduce new order types including market-on-open and limit-on-open orders. While orders are gathered in the minutes leading up to the 9:30 ET open, Nasdaq will publish an order imbalance indicator to make investors aware of the collective buying and selling interest. At 9:30 ET, all eligible orders will be executed at a single price, which will be used as the benchmark for establishing index values and pricing derivative products on major expiration days.

Nasdaq plans to have the Nasdaq Opening Cross in production during the second quarter 2004. It will also establish a closing cross for launch in 2004.