Summary: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has indicated that one-third of Amex's new listings did not meet the exchange's equity listing standards. Amex's listing guidelines address factors that are the same or similar to those addressed by other U.S. stock markets. Quantitative requirements addressed share price, stockholders' equity, income, and market value of publicly held shares. However, the minimum thresholds for meeting these requirements varied to reflect the differences in the companies that each market targeted for listing. The most significant difference between Amex's guidelines and the listing standards of other U.S. stock markets was that Amex was one of only two markets that retained discretion to initially list companies that did not meet all of its quantitative requirements. Amex had not implemented the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations' (OCIE) recommendations on the exchange's discretionary listing decisions. OCIE officials told GAO that in the absence of an Amex agreement to address the recommendations, they would include them among the open significant recommendations to be reported to the SEC Commissioners as a result of a 1998 GAO recommendation. The Commission can require Amex to implement OCIE's recommendations. Amex officials said that the exchange was fulfilling its self-regulatory organization responsibilities by individually monitoring the status of companies that did not meet its continued listing guidelines and by summarizing information in monthly reports to management.
