The Mutual Fund Quotation Service (MFQS) assists management investment companies in the collection and dissemination of daily price and related data for unit investment trusts, mutual funds and money markets.
Created and administered by NASDAQ, MFQS is a user-friendly service that utilizes a browser-based application. Hours of operation during which a user may update, query, and correct fund information are daily from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., ET.
The MFQS web site is a fully secure site that integrates both client certificates and user IDs with passwords. The current date and time, as well as a notice of extended deadlines, appear on each page of the site. The ability to create bookmarks (placeholders to specific pages) provides the user with direct links to the areas of the site the user accesses most frequently.
Types of Subscribers
MFQS is used by three primary groups: mutual fund complexes, pricing agents, and service bureaus. A mutual fund complex can elect to enter its fund data itself, or authorize a pricing agent or service bureau to act on its behalf. When registering its funds with MFQS, the fund complex can designate itself as a reporting or correspondent firm as defined below:
Reporting Firm - The reporting firm is the subscriber who enters quotations through the MFQS. This firm can be the mutual fund complex itself, a pricing agent, or a service bureau. A reporting firm is given access to enter prices only for those funds for which it has been granted reporting responsibilities.
Correspondent Firm - When a fund complex authorizes another firm to report its fund prices to MFQS, the complex becomes known as the correspondent firm for those funds. The correspondent firm can be authorized to query its funds through MFQS, but it will not have access to enter data.
Levels of Participation
Fund data reported to MFQS will be included on either the News Media or the Supplemental List. Minimum eligibility requirements exist for both lists. If your firm's fund qualifies for both lists, you are free to choose which list you prefer.
News Media List
The funds on this list are eligible for inclusion in the fund tables of newspapers nationwide1 and are broadcast over NASDAQ’s Mutual Fund Dissemination Service distributed by market data vendors, such as Morningstar, Reuters, and Bloomberg. In order to obtain a group heading in the listing, the group must contain at least three funds. The group heading must be the same as the fund’s name as registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Because of space limitations in printed fund tables and the ever-increasing number of funds, some newspapers may need to limit the number of funds appearing in their tables. In order to assist newspapers in determining which funds have the broadest appeal to the investing public, NASDAQ has established initial eligibility requirements for the News Media List.
Eligibility and Maintenance Requirements
The standard for initial inclusion in the News Media List requires registration of the fund with the SEC as an open-end investment management company and either a minimum of 1,000 shareholder accounts (as defined in the NASD Rules) or $25,000,000 in net assets. If a mutual fund is a series fund, each fund of the series must meet either of the above requirements in order to qualify.
Open-end funds on the News Media list will be reviewed annually to ensure that they meet the requirements for continued inclusion in the News Media list of 750 shareholder accounts or $15,000,000 in net assets.
Initial inclusion standards for closed-end funds on the News Media List, require registration of the fund with the SEC as a closed-end investment management company and $60,000,000 in net assets. Closed-end funds on the News Media list will be reviewed annually to ensure that they meet the requirements for continued inclusion in the News Media list of $30,000,000 in net assets.
Supplemental List
The funds on the Supplemental List are disseminated over NASDAQ’s Mutual Fund Dissemination Service distributed by market data vendors. This list provides significant visibility for mutual funds that do not qualify for the News Media List. Although newspapers may have space limitations, vendors of market data to the industry and the public have the capacity to provide a considerable amount of data to their subscribers. Prices for funds on the Supplemental List can also be found on www.NASDAQ.com. NASDAQ also has established initial eligibility requirements for the Supplemental List.
Eligibility Requirements:
The standard for initial inclusion in the Supplemental List requires registration of the fund with the SEC as an open-end or closed-end investment management company and a minimum of $10 million in net assets or two full years of operation (as defined in the NASD Rules).
Alternatively, a fund can be listed on the Supplemental List if the investment firm meets certain criteria. The investment firm must have at least one other fund that is listed on MFQS that has $10 million in net assets and the investment firm must have at least $15 million in total mutual/money fund assets under management.
If a series fund is qualifying for the Supplemental Listing under the $10 million asset requirement, each individual fund within the series must meet the minimum requirement in order to be listed. However, if the series fund is qualifying under the two full years of operation requirement, all funds within the series can be listed regardless of their individual time of operation.
