BOX Sets Multiple Trading Volume Records In July, Monthly PIP Savings Also At Record Level

The month of July 2008 proved to be the best month in Boston Options Exchange’s (“BOX”) history, witnessing new daily, weekly, and monthly volume records as follows:

• Best single day in BOX history: July 15, with 1,451,453 contracts executed.
• Best week in BOX history: July 7 through 11, with an average daily volume of 1,159,679 contracts executed.
• Best month in BOX history: July, with an average daily volume of 879,127 contracts executed, which represents a 38% increase over the same period last year as well as a 12% increase on a month-to-month basis. This new record is 4% higher than the previous monthly record set last January. BOX market share in classes traded was 5.80%.

Monthly PIP Savings At Record Level

In the month of July, price improvement versus the prevailing NBBO for contracts submitted via BOX’s price improvement auction (‘PIP’^*) averaged $3.77 per contract. An average of 94,608 contracts per day received price improvement during the month. This represented savings to investors of $7,849,050 million, an all-time record high, improving over the $7,815,276 reached last January.

^* Patent application pending for BOX Price Improvement Process auction