This program is a result of ISE's growth in volume and market share to levels that support the expanded distribution of its front-end system. ISE's volume has nearly tripled in the four-month period from December 2000 to April 2001, and market share in the 313 issues currently traded has increased to 12%. This strong trend reflects the many benefits being realized by the brokerage community as a result of their participation in ISE's fully electronic trading platform. Under this new plan, each EAM pays the standard fee for the first CLICK installation; all additional CLICK order-entry software installations are free.
Gary Katz, chief operating officer of ISE, said, "We are extremely pleased to be able to put this program into place. Removing economic barriers to ISE access has always been our goal, and we anticipate that the additional distribution of CLICK terminals will contribute to greater growth and new milestones."
On May 26, the ISE listed three issues as a first step in its rollout to trade the top 600 equity options on the world's only exchange to combine electronic trading with auction market principles. Currently, ISE trades 313 issues and is continuing to increase the roster in its rollout toward the full contingent of 600 listings. The updated list of issues traded is available on ISE's web site (www.iseoptions.com) within the section entitled "Product Information."
In a recent announcement, ISE indicated that all ten Primary Market Makers (PMMs) and fifty-three of 100 CMMs have been activated; the remaining CMMs will become operational during ISE's continuing rollout phase. Additionally, 85 broker/dealers have been approved as EAMs, with several more in the process of attaining EAM status.
