Exchange Changes Expiration Date For March 2000 FTSE Eurotop 300® Contract

The New York Mercantile Exchange board last night approved moving the expiration of the March 2000 Eurotop 300® contract to Thursday, March 16, from Friday, March 17, in recognition of the closure of the Irish Stock Exchange on March 17. The terms and conditions of the Exchanges FTSE Eurotop 100® and Eurotop 300® futures contracts call for them to expire on the third Friday of the contract month unless one of the exchanges listing the underlying stocks is closed. There are no stocks traded on the Irish Stock Exhange included in the FTSE Eurotop 100® index but there are four Irish Stock Exchange stocks included in the Eurotop 300® index, representing 0.55% of the index's total weight by capitalization. The Exchange's rules provide that, under such circumstances, the contract should terminate on the previous business day.