The Texas Stock Exchange, a Dallas-based startup, will initiate a phased rollout starting Monday, allowing approved broker-dealers, banks, and trading firms to trade test stocks initially. The exchange will be entirely digital but have a physical presence in Dallas, recently signing a lease at the Bank of America Tower in the Uptown neighborhood of Dallas.

Texas Economy to Benefit

Both Texas state government and stock exchange officials hope the Texas Stock Exchange launch will solidify Dallas’ attempt to become a national financial hub and boost the Texas economy by growing the financial services industry in the state. The creation of the Texas Stock Exchange is expected to create more jobs, investment, and growth opportunities for businesses and communities across the state.

According to Sriram Villupuram, a University of Texas at Arlington associate professor of finance, the location of a stock exchange still matters, and Texas has the ingredients for a successful exchange, including a rapidly growing pool of investors and Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state.

Competition to NYSE and NASDAQ

The Texas Stock Exchange will compete with the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, which have dominated the market for decades. The NYSE and NASDAQ have created branches of their exchanges in Texas, validating the Texas Stock Exchange’s efforts and showing that Wall Street is paying attention to the upstart exchange and the strength of Dallas’ growing financial sector.

The Texas Stock Exchange has announced a handful of Exchange-Traded Products, or ETPs, that will be listed on the exchange, allowing investors to buy into an entire market, such as the S&P 500, oil, or gold. The company is yet to announce any corporate listings, although officials said those will come later this summer and into the fall as the launch of corporate listings gets closer.

Original reporting: Texarkana Gazette — read the source article.