The American and Texas flags over Comerica Bank in downtown Dallas on Feb. 17, 2026.
Trading began on Monday at the Texas Stock Exchange, marking the first substantial trial of one of the most heavily financed new exchanges in decades.
The Dallas‑based startup is rolling out its platform in phases throughout July. On Monday, the venue opened to TXSE members—approved broker‑dealers, banks and trading firms—to trade test securities, with symbols for thousands of stocks and other equities slated to go live over the month, eventually opening trading to the public.
State officials and exchange leaders hope the TXSE debut will cement Dallas’s bid to become a national investors using the platform.
“With the start of full production trading, any last notions that TXSE is theoretical are instantly swept away,” a TXSE official wrote in a statement Thursday.
Monday’s start of trading is critically important to test-run and demonstrate to companies interested in listing on TXSE that it can provide aaid Sriram Villupuram, a University of Texas at Arlington associate professor of finance
“Basic technical things, hopefully will work well,” Villupuram said. “This is the first demonstration. It’s like a new car, a brand new company pushing out their first car. I think they’ll get through it fine, but things can go wrong. This is a high tech exchange at the end of the day.”
Although most trading now occurs electronically, the physical location of an exchange remains significant president of the Waco‑based research firm The Perryman Group. He noted that investors often favor holding and trading stocks of nearby firms, and Texas offers two key advantages—a rapidly expanding investor base driven by Dallas’s growing financial sector and a concentration of Fortune 500 headquarters that can be invested in
“A homegrown national exchange means more jobs, more investment, and more growth opportunities for businesses and communities across the Lone Star State,” said Gabriela von zur Muehlen, senior vice president and chief policy officer at the Texas Association of Business.
