New York Futures Exchange To Settle Stock Index Futures At Fair Value - Index Markets To Close Early On Last Trading Day, Effective Jan. 31, 2001

The New York Board of Trade (NYBOT®), announced that its New York Futures Exchange, Inc. (NYFE®) subsidiary will coordinate its settlement procedures for domestic stock index futures contracts with the settlement of similar products traded on other markets, on the last trading day of each month.

The Exchange will settle its domestic stock index futures contracts as follows:

• The Exchange will close the markets on the last trading day of the month at 4:05 p.m.(EST).
• The Exchange will survey market participants and review financial news media in order to determine the fair value for each of the domestic stock index futures contracts listed for trading at the Exchange.
• Using the surveys and the financial news media information, Exchange staff will determine the fair value of each domestic stock index futures contract and settle each contract at that value.

The settlement procedures described above will be implemented beginning with the last trading day of January 2001 (January 31, 2001).

The change applies to the NYFE stock index futures markets based on the Russell 1000 Index® of large capitalization U.S. equities, the NYSE Composite Index® of all the common stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Inc. and the PSE Technology Index™.