NYSE EURONEXT PLANS TO LAUNCH EUROPEAN MTF IN NOVEMBER

Posted September 8, 2008

PARIS – NYSE Euronext has announced plans to launch its own multi-lateral trading facility (MTF) for trading pan-European blue-chip stocks in November, to be called Octopus, just as the Nasdaq OMX Europe MTF prepares for its September 26 launch.

“As a cross-border regulated market, we already offer trading in Belgian, Dutch, French and Portuguese securities,” says Cees Vermaas, Executive Director, European Sales at NYSE Euronext. “This exciting new service complements both our existing market and the block trading facility, SmartPool, giving our customers access to a range of execution solutions, depending on the needs of their flow. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, we have a huge advantage in that we already have the client connections and infrastructure whereby our members will be able to access this new MTF.”

NYSE Euronext plans to launch its MTF with a phased introduction of pan-European stocks to include coverage of all components of the major indices not already listed on Euronext markets. The MTF will be based on Arca technology and will offer ultra-low latency in microseconds. Its trading model will be built around a central limit order book.

The MTF, to be regulated by Dutch regulator AFM, will be open to all types of traders and is designed to be particularly attractive to high-frequency traders. Existing members can trade on the platform by simply extending their membership.