Standard & Poor's Names 12 Stocks For S&P 500 Amex Pricing Pilot Program

Standard & Poor's Names 12 Stocks For S&P 500 Amex Pricing Pilot Program Standard & Poor's, a leading provider of independent investment research, indices, and ratings, announced today the 12 Nasdaq-listed securities that will be used in its upcoming pilot program in which the S&P 500 will be calculated using closing prices as determined on the American Stock Exchange (Amex). This pilot will begin Monday, March 1, 2004 with six stocks:

Company Name	       Symbol

Huntington Bancshares	HBAN

Genzyme Corp.		GENZ

Starbucks Corp.		SBUX

Staples Inc.	                SPLS

Altera Corp.		ALTR

NVIDIA Corp.		NVDA

Standard & Poor's will add six more stocks to the pilot program on Monday, March 8, 2004:

Company Name	      Symbol

CIENA Corp.		CIEN

Comcast Corp.		CMCSA

Compuware Corp.		CPWR

Costco Co.			COST

Siebel Systems Inc.		SEBL

Yahoo Inc.			YHOO

The pilot program will end on Friday, May 14, 2004 at which time pricing on the 12 stocks will revert to NASDAQ closes.

"We selected this set of stocks from the 74 Nasdaq-listed securities in the S&P 500 because their trade volumes are representative of the average trading volume for these 74 stocks," said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the S&P Index Committee. "We also selected stocks from across a range of sectors for a diversified sampling."

More information about the pilot program, including a Q&A, can be found on the website www.indices.standardandpoors.com About Standard & Poor's Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE:MHP), is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research, data and valuations. With 5000 employees located in 20 countries, Standard & Poor's is an essential part of the world's financial infrastructure and has played a leading role for more than 140 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions. For more information, visit www.standardandpoors.com.