Exchanges · Small cap
NYSE American (AMEX)
Three names for one exchange, a listing built around smaller companies, and the venue where the first exchange-traded fund began trading. Its breadth data behaves quite differently from the NYSE’s, and for a structural reason.
Three names, one venue
The American Stock Exchange became NYSE MKT after NYSE Euronext acquired it in 2008, and NYSE American in 2017. The role has not changed through the renamings: a listing venue for companies that do not meet the senior NYSE market’s initial standards, at lower thresholds.
The names matter more than they should, because historical data carries whichever label was current when it was recorded. Anyone working with a long breadth series will meet AMEX in the older files and NYSE American in the newer ones, and the transition is a label change rather than a market event, the kind of step in a series that is easy to interpret and wrong to.
Where the first ETF traded
The exchange’s largest contribution to modern markets has nothing to do with its equity listings. The first American exchange-traded fund began trading here in 1993, and for years this was the primary venue for the ETF market as it grew from a curiosity into the dominant retail investment structure.
Most of that listing business moved on, and the history left a mark that matters for anyone reading old data: a great deal of early ETF material is filed under AMEX. It is also the reason the exchange’s issue count was historically unlike a company list, a point the NYSE page makes about listings generally and which applied here earlier and more strongly than anywhere else.
Graduation and delisting, and what they do to a series
A second-tier listing has more traffic through its doors than a senior one, in both directions. A company that succeeds moves up to the senior market; a company that fails delists. Both events remove a name from this exchange's counts.
For a long breadth series that produces a subtle bias worth knowing about: the list is continuously losing its best and its worst members while retaining the middle. A study of "how companies on this exchange performed" over a decade is measuring a population that was being drained from both ends, and the survivorship problem described on the index pages applies here in an unusual double form.
Why its breadth data needs its own thresholds
This is the practical reason an exchange page belongs in a volume reference. Breadth is counted per exchange, and this exchange’s list is short and weighted to small companies.
| Property | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Fewer issues | Smaller denominators, so a modest number of issues moving produces an extreme-looking ratio. Noise dominates a single session. |
| Smaller companies | Thinner books and prices set by fewer trades, so an advance or decline can reflect very little actual participation. |
| Different composition | A different mix of structures from the senior market, so the rate-sensitive distortion described on the NYSE page applies in a different proportion. |
| Historical relabelling | AMEX and NYSE American series must be joined carefully; the rename is not a market event. |
The instruction that follows is the same one this reference gives everywhere. Compute the percentiles from the series in front of you rather than borrowing a level from the NYSE, and never quote a combined multi-exchange figure against a threshold derived from one of them.
What a small-cap venue is for
The economic role is worth stating, because it explains the character of the list better than any figure could. A senior listing carries requirements (scale of earnings, market value, the number of shareholders), that a young or small company cannot meet, and a market with only senior listings would exclude them from public capital entirely.
A second-tier venue exists to take them at a lower threshold, and everything that follows from that is predictable: smaller companies, thinner order books, prices set by fewer trades, and a higher rate of both graduations to the senior market and delistings. None of it is a defect of the exchange. It is the population it was built to serve, and it is the reason every reading taken across this list needs its own baseline rather than a borrowed one.
Reading an AMEX volume figure
Everything above has a practical consequence for the number itself. A share count from this venue is not comparable with one from a large-cap listing without two adjustments, and neither is visible in the figure.
The share price is low, so the share count is high. A million shares of a two-dollar issue is two million dollars of business; a million shares of a two-hundred-dollar issue is two hundred million. Ranking small-cap names by share volume produces a list sorted mostly by price level, which is why a turnover figure in currency, or volume expressed as a ratio to the instrument's own average, says far more here than a raw count does.
Participation is concentrated into fewer sessions. A thinly held issue can trade almost nothing for a week and then post a year's worth of volume on a single announcement. The average is therefore a poor description of the typical session (it sits well above the median), and a baseline built from the mean will mark ordinary days as quiet and quiet days as dead. Where a distribution is this skewed, the median session is the more honest reference point.
Both effects push the same way: they make small-cap volume look more dramatic than it is when it moves, and flatter than it is when it does not. The volume baseline page covers how to build a comparison that survives them.
Frequently asked questions
What is NYSE American?
The exchange formerly known as the American Stock Exchange, or AMEX. It was acquired by NYSE Euronext in 2008, renamed NYSE MKT, and became NYSE American in 2017. Its role has been consistent through the name changes: a listing venue for smaller companies, with lower initial listing requirements than the senior NYSE market.
Why does the old name persist?
Because a great deal of historical data, research and market commentary is labelled AMEX, including the breadth statistics that anyone studying a long series will encounter. The ticker-level data continues under the new venue name while the archives use the old one, so a long history will contain the rename as a label change rather than a market event, one more reason to check what a series is actually counting before interpreting a step in it.
Was the first ETF listed there?
Yes, the first US exchange-traded fund began trading on the American Stock Exchange in 1993, and the exchange became the primary home of the early ETF market. Most of that listing business has since moved elsewhere, notably to NYSE Arca, but it is the reason so much early ETF history is filed under AMEX and why the exchange mattered far more than its equity listings alone would suggest.
How does its breadth data differ from the NYSE’s?
The list is much shorter and weighted to smaller companies, so the counts are smaller and considerably noisier: a modest number of issues moving can produce an extreme-looking advance/decline ratio. Any threshold borrowed from NYSE breadth data will fire far too often here. As with every measure on this site, the levels have to be recomputed from the same series they are applied to.
Is it still a significant venue?
For listings, it is small relative to the NYSE and Nasdaq. For trading, the distinction between listing and trading applies as it does everywhere: a company listed here trades across many venues, so its own volume statistics describe its market share as much as the market. Its historical significance — as the small-cap venue and the birthplace of the ETF — is larger than its current listing count.
Why did smaller companies list there?
Lower initial listing standards. The senior NYSE market has required a scale of earnings, market value and shareholder distribution that many smaller companies cannot meet, and this venue offered a listing at a lower threshold. That is the whole explanation for the character of the list, and it is why the same caution applies as with any small-cap population: thinner books, wider spreads, and prices set by fewer trades.
Should its breadth data be combined with the NYSE’s?
Only with care and never silently. Combining two exchanges produces a count across a merged population with different characteristics, and any threshold computed on the combined series applies to nothing else. It is defensible when the question is genuinely about the whole market; it is not defensible to quote a combined figure against a level derived from one exchange, which is a common error in older market commentary.
Where do I find its listed companies?
From the exchange itself, which publishes its listing directory. This page does not reproduce a constituent list for the same reason no other page in this section does: the list changes continuously as companies list, delist and move to the senior market, and a static table becomes wrong quietly rather than visibly.