Boston Stock Exchange moves into its new home

By Sharon L. Lynch, Associated Press writer

BOSTON -- The Boston Stock Exchange opens a gleaming new high-tech facility today, freeing traders from the dim, cluttered quarters they've called home for years.

The new offices in the city's Financial District boast nearly twice the trading floor space as the old building and a chance for the public to view the action from a second-story mezzanine.

"The other building was a jumbled mess of cables," Joe Lloyd, senior vice president of systems, said of the new facility. "Now we're a competitor."

The Boston exchange was founded in 1834 as a market center for trading stocks of New England-based companies.

The 92 local traders who make their livings swapping stocks will be moving onto the new trading floor, with more expected to follow.

The new offices take up four floors of a landmark building. Right outside, a "data wall" of televisions tuned to CNN, MSNBC and other channels will give passersby real-time information about foreign and domestic markets.

An exchange spokeswoman said public accessibility was an important factor in choosing the building, which was constructed in 1908 and is just down the block from the shopping hub of Downtown Crossing.

One of the prime reasons companies like Gillette, McDonald's and Lucent Technologies sell their stocks on the exchange is for the marketing benefit.

Lucent, for example, boasts that about 63 percent of its 1.3 billion outstanding shares belong to individuals rather than to other companies. For firms with such wide appeal to the public, selling stock on regional exchanges like Boston's is just one more way to stay close to the customer.

"In that kind of a retail environment, it's very important to have yourself as widely available as possible," said Lucent spokesman Bill Price.

Like the other regional exchanges -- Philadelphia, Pacific, Chicago, Cincinnati, and American -- Boston operates in the shadow of the massive New York Stock Exchange, but provides a public trading option for smaller companies.

Last year, more than 2.6 billion shares valued at $113 billion were traded on the BSE -- less than 2 percent of the number traded on the NYSE. Prerequisites for the regional exchanges are less stringent than the NYSE.

There has been talk of combining some of the smaller exchanges. Boston and Cincinnati ended merger talks last year after failing to reach an agreement, but senior staff and board members of the two exchanges said at the time they would continue exploring other options.

When companies get big enough, they sometimes move their securities to New York, but others choose to keep a second listing on the smaller exchanges. No matter where an investor buys such "dually listed" stocks, they pay one price because a computer network connects the various exchanges.