Brendan McDermid/Reuters 
 
 An $8 billion exchange merger is in the works that underscores how the global market for derivatives has eclipsed that for stocks. 
 
 The owner of the venerable New York Stock Exchange is in talks to be acquired by an upstart commodities and derivatives trading platform, according to people briefed on the matter. The IntercontinentalExchange is expected to offer about $33 a share, with two-thirds of that in stock, one of these people said. That represents a premium of 37 percent to NYSE Euronext’s closing stock price on Wednesday. 
 
 A deal could be announced as soon as Thursday morning, though these people cautioned that talks may still break down. 
 
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 While the New York Stock Exchange, with its opening bell and floor traders, has been the public image of a stock market for two centuries, it is NYSE Euronext’s businesses in the over-the-counter trading of derivatives — including the Liffe market in London — that appear to be the main attraction in the merger talks. 
 
 IntercontinentalExchange, or ICE, was founded in 2000 and is based in Atlanta. It competes fiercely with the CME Group, a derivatives trading powerhouse that owns the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. 
 
 More than a year ago, ICE teamed up with the New York exchange’s chief rival, the Nasdaq OMX Group, to make a hostile bid for NYSE Euronext. The two had sought to break up their older competitor’s plan to merge with Deutsche Börse of Europe, which would have created a powerful trans-Atlantic company with a big market share in the trading of stocks and derivatives. 
 
 Under the terms of that deal, valued at about $11 billion, Nasdaq would have taken NYSE Euronext’s equities business, while ICE would have assumed the derivatives operations. 
 
 But the Justice Department threatened to block that joint offer, on the ground that combining NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq would create an overwhelming monopoly in the world of stock trading. 
 
 The planned merger of NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse itself fell apart early this year after European antitrust regulators opposed the combination, on the ground that it would corner too much of the market in exchange-traded derivatives. 
 
 But the newest merger might pose fewer problems because ICE focuses on commodities like oil, natural gas and cotton, while NYSE Euronext plies mainly in stock and stock options and derivatives. 
 
 And unlike several proposed mergers, like that of the Singaporean and Australian stock exchanges, which fell apart last year on nationalist concerns, this potential deal would take place between two companies from the same country. 
 
 After its deal with Deutsche Börse collapsed, NYSE Euronext was left to conduct some soul-searching. At the time, the company said that it would most likely look to smaller acquisitions and cost-cutting. 
 
 The trading of stocks has become a less attractive business. The New York Stock Exchange is now responsible for only about 11 percent of all stock trading, while NYSE Euronext’s electronic Arca platform accounts for another 12 percent, according to industry data. 
 
 The average number of American stocks traded each day has fallen every year since 2009, and has continued to decline over the course of 2012, according to statistics from Credit Suisse. The volume of trading in futures and options, where ICE is focused, has also fallen since last year, but less than in stocks. 
 
 A tie-up with ICE, however, would link NYSE Euronext to one of the industry’s fastest-growing exchanges. ICE has some of the highest profit margins in the business. 
 
 It might also reap some of the benefits that have driven a decade-long spree of consolidation among exchanges. Such companies have long sought to gain the greater scale and cost savings that come from combining back-end operations and staff cuts. 
 
 Still, the potential merger would sharply expand ICE, which despite its bigger market value is a smaller company. It has a little more than 1,000 employees, while NYSE Euronext has 3,077. 
 
 It isn’t clear whether other exchanges would seek to break up the proposed transaction. The CME Group is a candidate to express opposition. But the firm appeared to have little appetite in bidding for NYSE Euronext last year, and it may run into antitrust concerns. 
 
 Other potential spoilers, including the Hong Kong and Singaporean exchanges, could run into nationalist concerns. 
 
 Shares of NYSE Euronext rose more than 21 percent in after-hours trading, to $29.20, after The Wall Street Journal reported news of the talks. 
 
 Nathaniel Popper contributed reporting. ||||| (See Corrections and Amplifications item below.) 
 
 After 219 years as the citadel of American capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange was near an agreement to be acquired by Deutsche Börse AG in a deal that would create the world's largest financial exchange. 
 
 With the parent of the New York Stock Exchange and Germany's Deutsche Borse in advanced talks to merge, Aaron Lucchetti and Dennis Berman look at the likely impact on Wall Street as the financial capital of the world. 
 
 If a deal is reached and regulators approve, the combined company would trade more stocks and futures than any rival in the world and more options than any U.S. exchange. The takeover would culminate a decade of tie-ups by exchanges around the world eager to find new sources of growth and catch up with smaller rivals that have been quicker to embrace new and lucrative kinds of trading. 
 
 For New York, the move is symbolic of the city's fading dominance on the world stage as other countries are drawing investors directly to their markets. The move also is a recognition that securities trading today goes on at all hours and in all time zones, making the actual bricks and mortar of Wall Street far less important than before. 
 
 "New York is going to be important, but it's not the financial center. Capital markets are everywhere now," said Michael LaBranche, CEO of LaBranche & Co, the family-run firm that traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for 87 years before it sold that part of its business to Britain's Barclays Capital in 2010. 
 
 Antitrust experts cautioned that the proposed deal could face tough regulatory scrutiny in Europe, as the new behemoth would dominate share and derivatives trading in the European Union—and in Washington, where tempers may rise over a crown jewel of the economy falling into foreign hands. 
 
 The exchanges, which are presenting the deal as a merger of equals, said the combination would leave 60% of the company in the hands of Deutsche Börse shareholders, with NYSE Euronext shareholders holding the remaining 40%. The combined company, with a putative market capitalization of some $25 billion as of Wednesday, would be incorporated in the Netherlands and split its headquarters between Frankfurt and New York. 
 
 Deutsche Börse Chief Executive Reto Francioni would become chairman, and NYSE Euronext chief Duncan Niederauer would be the new company's CEO under a board drawn equally from both companies. 
 
 The proposed all-stock deal is driven by growing competition from purely electronic exchanges, not only in stock trading but also in more-profitable derivative contracts such as options and futures. It lets NYSE and Deutsche Börse fight back against rising competitors such as CME Group Inc. and private exchanges known as "dark pools" run by big securities firms. 
 
 A deal would extend NYSE's lead as the largest share-trading venue in the world, adding the Frankfurt Stock Exchange to the New York Stock Exchange and the four European exchanges owned by NYSE. 
 
 The new entity would supplant CME Group as the world's largest futures exchange and create the biggest U.S. options group, as measured by contract volume. NYSE Euronext's two options platforms, combined with Deutsche Börse's International Securities Exchange market, amounted to about 40.5% of the U.S. options market last month. 
 
 NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse are in advanced merger talks, a combination that would create one of the world's largest share- and derivatives-trading platforms. Aaron Lucchetti has details. 
 
 Interest over a merger between Singapore and Australia's exchanges has been reignited after Deutsche Börse neared an agreement to buy the NYSE. WSJ's Jake Lee talks to Hong Kong Bureau Chief Peter Stein on possible tie-ups between Asian exchanges. 
 
 Global stock listing and U.S. stock trading would be based in New York, people familiar with the situation said. The global derivatives business would be led from Frankfurt, and Paris would host the technology arm and European stock trading. 
 
 The merger marks the NYSE's second European deal in just five years. In 2006, the NYSE beat out Deutsche Börse to buy Paris-based Euronext, which boasts exchanges in Amsterdam, Paris and elsewhere. 
 
 In 2008 and again in 2009, following their bidding war for Euronext, the German exchange and NYSE discussed a possible merger. But talks foundered because of internal management disputes at Deutsche Börse and disagreements about where a merged company would be based. 
 
 The two sides had been planning to announce a deal next week, but put out a statement Wednesday disclosing the talks after word leaked out on a German online financial site, said people familiar with the matter. The companies are in advanced talks, though no terms have been set. Directors will need to sign off on the deal—and a host of regulatory challenges awaits on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 
 The plan is likely to trigger an in-depth probe at the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said Simon Holmes, partner and head of the EU and Competition department in the London office of international law firm SJ Berwin. "It would be a very complicated deal likely to require a detailed … investigation by the European antitrust regulator," Mr. Holmes said. 
 
 The plan drew a cautious, low-key response from American politicians and regulators faced with control of an iconic U.S. institution. The Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment all would have a role in signing off on any deal. 
 
 Shareholders and those concerned about the Big Board's competitive status applauded the news. NYSE rose 14% to $38.10, while shares of Deutsche Börse were halted in Frankfurt after rising 1.7% to €58.42. 
 
 But for those who remember the glory days, when the New York Stock Exchange was the unchallenged center of world finance, there was trouble containing the dismay. 
 
 The NYSE "is not the same iconic place that it was in its heyday," said William Higgins, a 74-year-old retired NYSE trader, who still owns about 70,000 shares of the company. He recalls when the NYSE was a private club and traders gained entry by buying a "seat" that entitled them to do business there. "It doesn't mean life won't go on, but to those of us who have been called New Yorkers, to not have that air of sophistication, the sense that 'this is where things get done,' it's sad." 
 
 According to lore, New York stock trading can be traced to 1792, when traders signed an agreement under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. Since then, the exchange has grown into a symbol of American capitalism where thousands of global companies are listed. 
 
 For two centuries, trading was face-to-face, conducted between individuals on the exchange floor. When the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001, the exchange unveiled a huge Stars and Stripes on the front of its building, and a symbol of American resilience was born. 
 
 Today, the great majority of NYSE trading is done electronically. Actual floor trading tends to be so quiet that some traders began spending time in a lounge where they could watch movies during the day. The lounge was closed after a Wall Street Journal article mentioned it. In Frankfurt, the German exchange voted in November to end face-to-face trading entirely in May of this year. 
 
 According to a person familiar with plans, several hundred jobs would likely be cut over time, but most of the cost cutting would be in technology, and fewer than 100 jobs would be cut in New York. Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext said a combination could generate €300 million in annualized savings, some 10% of their cost base. 
 
 To avoid nationalistic concerns over the name, one idea is to avoid using the word Deutsche or the acronym NYSE, said one person familiar with the plans, who stressed that no decision has been made. 
 
 "I wish them luck. I hope they know what they are doing," said veteran stock trader Alan "Ace" Greenberg, a former Bear Stearns Cos. chairman who now is vice-chairman emeritus at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. 
 
 Corrections & Amplifications 
 
 The potential purchaseof NYSE Euronext by Deutsche Börse AG could generate €300 million ($408 million) in annual cost savings, the companies said. In addition, the American Stock Exchange was acquired by NYSE Euronext in 2008. An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the cost-savings target was $300 million, and a graphic accompanying the continuation of the article incorrectly said the American Stock Exchange had been acquired by Nasdaq OMX Group 
 
 Write to E.S. Browning at jim.browning@wsj.com, Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@dowjones.com and Aaron Lucchetti at aaron.lucchetti@dowjones.com
– InterContinentalExchange Inc. has agreed to buy NYSE Euronext, the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, for $8.2 billion, the two companies announced this morning. ICE, an Atlanta-based commodity exchange, says it intends to leave the NYSE's branding alone, and would explore an IPO for Euronext, spinning it off into a continental European entity, the Wall Street Journal reports. It will pay $33.12 a share for the elder exchange, or about a 37% premium on yesterday's close. You might remember ICE from its last attempt to buy the NYSE, which failed thanks to antitrust concerns from regulators. While the 12-year-old company may lack the name recognition of the iconic NYSE, it's much larger in terms of market capitalization, at $9.3 billion to NYSE Euronext's $5.8 billion—a sign, the New York Times observes, of how completely commodity trading has outpaced stock trading in relevance.