CORE DUMP

The American Stock Exchange is finalizing a letter of intent under which NYNEX will design a wireless handheld terminal that will allow traders to receive and transmit data using spread-spectrum technology. PA Technologies of Princeton, N.J. helped evaluate the feasibility of the portable transceiver for the Amex. Although federal law prevents NYNEX from manufacturing the wireless device, the company can design and sell it, says Mark Smith, who recently resigned as vice president of technology for the Amex but is working as a consultant to the exchange. Smith originally planned to join the Sherwood Group, but a decline in revenues forced the firm to trim its technological ambitions.

Fitel's new relationship with Recruit Co. Ltd. of Japan will allow the company to cut the price of Equinet, its system for clearing and settling international securities trades, says Fitel Chairman Graciela Chichilnisky. It costs banks between $4 and $9 to settle a trade using Equinet, says Chichilnisky, while brokers can pay up to $20 for complex transactions. Chichilnisky declined to specify the size of Fitel's planned price cuts, but says they will be "significant."

Recruit recently acquired 12% of Fitel's stock through its subsidiary, Recruit International VAN Co. Ltd., and received exclusive rights to market Equinet in Japan. Chichilnisky says Recruit is building its own network, which will allow Fitel to decrease its telecommunications costs significantly.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the National Association of Securities Dealers' proposals to upgrade its Small Order Execution System, which allows customer orders to be filled automatically. As of June 30, participation in SOES will be mandatory for all marketmakers in NASDAQ National Market System securities. Under the new rules, orders will be executed through SOES even when markets are locked (bid same as offer) or crossed (bid higher than offer).

The NASD has also established limits on the size of NASDAQ/NMS orders that are automatically executed. For 2,000 of the most active NASDAQ/NMS securities, the limit is 1,000 shares. For 600 less active issues, the limit is 500 shares and for 400 of the least active issues, the limit is 200 shares. Previously, 1,000-share orders could be traded through SOES for all NASDAQ/NMS securities.

Digital Transactions Inc., a New York-based software development firm, is negotiating with Sun Microsystems to port its Money Market Dealing System to Sun workstations and to enter a joint marketing relationship with Sun. DTI's system currently runs on stand-alone IBM PC-compatibles and uses a DEC VAX as a server.

CMQ Communications Inc., a subsidiary of Telerate Inc., has agreed to distribute Comtex Scientific Corp.'s OTC NewsAlert, which provides news on more than 16,000 issues traded in the over-the-counter market.

The Chicago Board of Trade and the Tokyo Stock Exchange have signed an information-sharing agreement that will help pave the way for both exchanges to begin trading stock index futures on the TSE's Tokyo Price Index, known as TOPIX. The TSE plans to begin trading TOPIX futures later this summer and the CBOT will list the contract "at the earliest possible time" after that, according to an understanding reached by the two exchanges in April.

Automatic Data Processing, Inc. has let go of 50% of its London staff, according to executive recruitment sources in the City. ADP is reportedly withdrawing from the financial information business in the U.K. and is expecting to terminate or relocate most of its remaining London employees soon. ADP's European sales manager, Max Siebenmann, was recently hired away by Telerate. ADP executives could not be reached for comment.

The voice recognition capability of Reuters' new Dealing 2000 electronic trading system was demonstrated at Forex 88 with a Verbex I/O device. Verbex is based in Morristown, N.J. and sells a speaker- dependent continuous speech recognition systems with a 100 word vocabulary for $5,700.