Philadelphia Stock Exchange Enhances Equity Pace System

For more information, contact: Heidi Van Vooren at 215-496-5200 or The Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) announced yesterday that is has received Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval to implement an enhancement to the PHLX's Automatic Communication and Execution (PACE) System's Automatic Price Improvement (API) feature. Effective July 13, 2000, this latest enhancement will allow PHLX's specialists to implement automatic price improvement to allow sell orders to improve to the last sale on an uptick and/or allow sell orders to improve to a price higher than the last sale.

PAC is the Exchange's automated order routing and execution system on the equity trading floor. The API feature of the PACE System allows the specialist to provide automatic price improvement to market and marketable limit orders when the PAC quote (NBBO) is more than 3/16th or 1/8th.

The lastest enhancement to the API feature (Super API) will allow PHLX's equity specialists to provide automatic price improvement to sell orders in a particular security even when the sell order would be executed on the last sale and the last sale is an uptick.

The PHLX is the first securities exchange in the U.S. and the nation's fastest growing sectors index options exchange. Founded in 1790, PHLX is a market leader in the trading of over 2,300 stocks, 770 equity options, eleven sectors index options and 100 currency pairs.