Texas Stock Exchange trades real shares for the first time
TXSE members traded test symbols that never cleared from July 6 to July 9, then live trading began July 10 in five securities. Dell gained 10.31% for the week, and no Texas company officer or director made an open market buy.
The Texas Stock Exchange traded real shares for the first time on Friday, July 10, in five symbols. Dell gained 10.31% for the week, the most of the Texas large caps we checked, and we didn't find a single discretionary open market purchase by an officer or director of a Texas company.
The first trades on the Texas Stock Exchange were in test symbols. Members spent Monday through Thursday trading designated test securities with tickers like CTEST and NTEST, which never cleared through the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., the exchange's July 2 member notice says. Two more test symbols were added Tuesday under a July 6 update.
Real shares followed on Friday. Live trading started July 10 in five National Market System securities, Venable wrote that day. The exchange's notice named them as PBA, PDFS, SPHD, SRRK and VCYT.
That's a small start, and it was meant to be. The exchange's June 17 rollout schedule calls for about 200 symbols from July 14 to 17, about 3,000 the week after with blue chips starting July 23, and every listed symbol by July 31. Venable said listings of exchange traded products are expected in September and corporate listings in October.
The Dallas exchange got SEC approval on Sept. 30, 2025, and has $275 million in backing. It launched its plan in June 2024 with $120 million from firms including BlackRock and Citadel Securities, the Texas Tribune reported Monday. NYSE and Nasdaq both opened Texas branches in the meantime. We track all three on Texas Exchanges.
Our read
Friday's trades matter less for what changed hands than for what comes next. Trading a stock isn't the same as listing it, and the Texas Tribune reported July 3 that the exchange hadn't announced any corporate listings, with officials hoping for exchange traded products by the third quarter and corporate listings in the fourth. So the test that matters to issuers hasn't started.
When it does, the strongest pull may be legal rather than financial. Texas's shareholder proposal law, SB 1057, covers what it calls a nationally listed corporation. That's a company registered under Section 12(b) and listed on a national exchange that either has its principal office in Texas or is admitted to listing on a stock exchange that has its principal office in Texas and has been approved by the state securities commissioner. A company that opts in can require a proponent to hold $1 million in market value or 3% of the voting shares for six months and to solicit holders of at least 67% of the vote. Our read is that a Texas corporation based somewhere else could reach those rules through a Texas listing alone. The test turns on where the exchange is based and on state approval, not on its name, so which venues qualify is something we'll be checking.
The counterpoint is liquidity and time. A UT Arlington finance professor told the Tribune it'll take years for the exchange to compete with NYSE and Nasdaq, with listings growing slowly. And a company that lists in Dallas mainly to limit shareholder proposals is telling its owners something about how it sees them. We'll watch which names file first and whether their proxies opt into the new thresholds at the same time.
Dell had the week
Among the Texas large caps we checked, DELL moved most. It gained in each of the first four sessions, closing at $450.22 on Thursday, and gave back 3.39% on Friday.
| Company | July 2 close | July 10 close | Week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dell Technologies (DELL) | $394.32 | $434.97 | up 10.31% |
| HF Sinclair (DINO) | $72.50 | $78.07 | up 7.68% |
| Texas Instruments (TXN) | $293.08 | $311.46 | up 6.27% |
| Chevron (CVX) | $169.20 | $176.40 | up 4.26% |
| Tesla (TSLA) | $393.45 | $407.76 | up 3.64% |
| Oracle (ORCL) | $140.27 | $140.64 | up 0.26% |
Returns are Lone Star Index calculations from Yahoo Finance closes. Tesla made most of its gain Monday, up 6.69% to $419.77, after falling 7.49% on its delivery report the Thursday before. Oracle's flat week followed two losing ones, and July 10 was its ex dividend date.
A quiet week for buyers
We checked the Texas Form 4s filed July 6 through July 12 and didn't find a discretionary open market purchase by any officer or director of a Texas company. The only sizable code P purchase came from a parent company. Dallas based Transcontinental Realty Investors, which owned about 84.6% of Income Opportunity Realty Investors (IOR) at March 31 per IOR's quarterly report, reported buying 13,044 more IOR shares from June 4 through June 23 at $17.50 to $17.97, about $231,556 by our math, in a Form 4 filed July 6. Both companies list the same LBJ Freeway address in Dallas.
Three other filings used the word purchased. A director of Plano based Upbound Group bought shares through dividend reinvestment, and two Intrusion officers bought through the company's employee stock purchase plan, including the finance chief's filing. None of that counts on Insider Radar.
What to watch
- July 14 to 17: About 200 symbols are due to start trading on the Texas Stock Exchange, under its June 17 rollout schedule.
- July 22: Texas Instruments holds its second quarter earnings call at 3:30 p.m. Central, per its July 1 announcement.
- July 23: Blue chips start trading on the exchange, part of about 3,000 symbols due that week.
- July 31: Every listed symbol is due to be live.
We'll track each stage of the rollout on the Texas Exchanges page.
Lone Star Index publishes research, not investment advice.