NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SECURITIES DEALERS: A stock market in which corporate stocks are exchanged by dealers across the country using a computerized system of stock price quotes. This is often referred to as the "over-the-counter" stock market, because, unlike the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and others, the dealers don't conduct their business at a single location. They match up their buy and sell orders through a computer network rather than through the face-to-face contact. Transactions conducted by the NASD give rise to one of the more commonly publicized stock market price indicators, the NASDAQ (which stands for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation). The widely used NASDAQ composite index is based on the prices of 5,000 of these over-the-counter stocks. See also | stock market | corporate stock | NASDAQ | New York Stock Exchange | American Stock Exchange | index | Dow Jones averages | Standard & Poor's 500 |
