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CBOE Seat Prices Hit One Million Dollars - New Record Seat Sale On Tuesday, February 7th

Date 07/02/2006

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) announced that a seat, or membership, was bought today, for the first time ever, at a price of $1,000,000. This new record seat price surpasses the previous high of $925,000, set just last week on Friday, February 3, 2006.

On Friday, February 3, 2006, three memberships were bought at $890,000, $900,000 and $925,000, each beating the previous record high price of $875,000, first set on December 20, 2005 and matched on January 5th, the first seat sale of 2006.

Today's record seat sale follows a record breaking January at CBOE, with trading volume for the month the busiest in the Exchange's history. January's volume of 53.9 million contracts was an increase of 55% over January 2005, and surpassed the previous monthly record of 49.6 million contracts from October 2005.Average daily volume of nearly 2.7 million contracts at CBOE during January was also a new all-time record. The CBOE Futures Exchange also set new records with volume in futures on the VIX of 21,502 and open interest of 19,476 at month's end.

CBOE announced in September 2005 that as of January 1, 2006 it would begin the process of converting CBOE to a for-profit stock corporation.

CBOE, the world's largest options marketplace and the creator of listed options, is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For additional information about the CBOE and its products, visit the CBOE website at: http://www.cboe.com/