A Listing Rule Can Be Stopped Twice: Once Before It Removes Anyone, and Once After the Exit Has Closed
Two markets spent 2026 raising the same kind of threshold. Both ended the year with that threshold suspended. The sequence in which the suspension arrived is the part worth reading. A continued-listing floor based on market capitalisation is a rule with an unusual property: the company does not file the variable that decides it. Revenue, equity and audit opinions arrive from the issuer. Market value arrives from everyone else. When an exchange raises that floor, it changes an outcome the issuer cannot directly produce, which is why the procedure for objecting to the rule carries more weight here than it does for a filing-based criterion. What the two markets did Nasdaq's new standard requires USD 5 million in market value of listed securities and pairs it with a substantially accelerated removal process — the traditional cure period and the automatic stay on appeal are both removed. The SEC approved it on 22 July 2026. On 4 August 2026, following a petition by the Small Public ...