(Bloomberg) -- Nasdaq OMX is making a push to grab more exchange-traded note listings, challenging long- time market leader NYSE Arca for what can be lucrative listing and trading fees.
Twenty ETNs, or about 10% of the more than 200 U.S. securities, currently trade on the Nasdaq, according to Jeff McCarthy, head of ETP listings. Last year Barclays transferred 10 of its iPath ETNs that track Treasury bonds from NYSE Arca to trade primarily through Nasdaq, though most of the 72 iPath notes remain on NYSE Arca.
Such listings can be attractive for exchanges because of revenue generated from heavy trading. On Monday, 68.2 million shares of a leveraged bet on oil called the VelocityShares 3X Long Crude ETN changed hands, a higher volume than for all except one stock in the S&P 500.
“Nasdaq is putting a large effort behind this space,” said McCarthy, who joined the company in December from Citigroup. He said the company also seeks to attract ETFs, which unlike notes are backed by assets. Nasdaq acquired Richmond, Va.-based Dorsey, Wright & Associates, which provides indexes and ETFs, in January.
The exchange expects to be competitive on the fees it charges to list the products, which are calculated annually based on the total number of an issuer’s shares outstanding and capped at $14,500 per year for ETFs and $45,000 for ETNs, according to McCarthy. Nasdaq also typically receives between 0.1 cent and 0.3 cent per share traded.
Nasdaq had 63 new listings in 2014 that it categorized as structured products, ETFs or other, according to a Feb. 17 regulatory filing.
NYSE Arca had 187 ETNs on the exchange at the end of January, according to the exchange’s data. The iPath’s Bloomberg Commodity Index Total Return ETN and GSCI Total Return Index, the first ETNs listed in the U.S. in 2006, both trade mainly on the exchange.
Mark Lane, a spokesman for Barclays, had no comment on why the bank moved some of its iPath ETN listings. Judy Shaw, a spokeswoman for NYSE, also declined to comment.
