NYSE ARCA OPTIONS INCLUDES SWEEP TRADES IN AUCTION BILLING RATES

Posted October 13, 2008

NEW YORK – The NYSE Arca Inc. unit of NYSE Euronext will expand the auction billing rates in its NYSE Arca Options marketplace to include sweep trades in all penny pilot issues. The penny pilot lowers the increments of the spreads for various options to 1 or 5 cents.

The expansion will include orders received prior to the auction of a penny pilot issue, that are marketable for auction but trade as part of an auction imbalance during sweep trading.

“As the first to offer post/take pricing in the US options market, our unique auction billing is another piece of our value proposition that we hope customers find useful and avail themselves of when accessing the liquidity on our options exchange,” says Edward Boyle, Senior Vice President, NYSE Arca Options.

For example, if an auction occurs at $1.20, and prior to auction a client has entered an order to pay $1.20 or greater, or a sell order priced at $1.20 or less, and these orders do not participate in the auction but trade during sweep, the client will receive auction billing. Contras to these orders will also receive auction billing.