NYSE Seat Sells for 3% Less Than Last Week

The New York Stock Exchange said a seat giving its owner the right to trade stocks on its floor sold for $1.46 million, down $50,000, or 3%, from the previous sale last week.

The latest price is off 45% from an August 1999 peak of $2.65 million. The exchange has 1,366 seats.

Trading on the exchange has been less profitable this year than last.

NYSE specialists, who make markets and trade for their own accounts, collectively lost $11 million in the first quarter, compared with a $58-million profit a year earlier. They’ve been hurt in part by a drop in volatility, which affords traders fewer opportunities to speculate on price movement.

Since September 2003, when the controversy about then-Chairman Richard Grasso’s pay package forced him to resign, seat prices have fallen 25%.

The current bid for a seat at the Big Board is $1.45 million and the offer to sell is $1.8 million, the exchange said.