NYSE American is no longer the soft fallback
For as long as most bankers can remember, exchange selection for a smaller company followed a familiar script. You ran the numbers against Nasdaq's initial listing standards first. If the float was thin, the price was low, or too much of the stock sat in restricted hands, you turned to NYSE American, where the tests were lighter and the exchange had a long tradition of welcoming development-stage companies. That script no longer works. The SEC has approved amendments to Sections 101 and 102 of the NYSE American Company Guide, published in the April 1, 2026 Federal Register, and the exchange's initial listing standards now sit close enough to Nasdaq's that the old gap has mostly disappeared. For issuers planning a listing this year or next, the change rewrites the qualification math from the ground up.