New Auction Enhances Quality of Customer Order Execution

NEW YORK, June 4, 2008 – The International Securities Exchange (ISE) announced today that its options exchange now offers Flash functionality, a feature that enhances the execution quality of eligible customer orders. Customer orders otherwise subject to Linkage will now be auctioned to the entire ISE member community for up to one second. The Flash auction provides these orders with the opportunity for price improvement and for faster execution than if they were routed through Linkage.

“We are committed to continually enhancing the features of our options platform in order to provide our members with the highest possible execution quality,” said Boris Ilyevsky, Head of Business Development for ISE's options exchange. “Flash functionality will benefit our customers by providing greater opportunity for price improvement, and the entire ISE member community will now be able to trade with orders that were previously unavailable to them.“

Prior to the introduction of Flash, customer orders that arrived at ISE when the away markets had a better available price could only receive price improvement from the Primary Market Maker (PMM) before being subject to Linkage. The Flash auction now enables the entire ISE member community to offer a better price for these orders. At the conclusion of the auction, the customer order trades with the responses that are better or equal to the NBBO. Should any portion of the order remain, it then follows standard Linkage procedures.

For more information on Flash functionality, please send an email to [email protected].

ISE Background

The International Securities Exchange operates a family of fully electronic trading platforms, creating efficient markets through innovative technology and market structure. ISE's markets portfolio consists of an options exchange and a stock exchange. As the world's largest equity options trading venue, ISE offers options on equities, ETFs, indexes, and FX. The ISE Stock Exchange trades approximately 6,000 products, and is the only fully electronic equities platform that provides the opportunity for continuous price improvement through the interaction of its non-displayed liquidity pool, MidPoint Match, and its displayed stock market. ISE Alternative Markets is scheduled to launch in 2008 and will offer a parimutuel trading platform for derivatives auctions. To complement its markets and enable investors to trade smarter, ISE creates innovative new products including a portfolio of proprietary indexes and enhanced market data for sophisticated investors.

ISE is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eurex, a leading global derivatives exchange. Eurex itself is jointly owned by Deutsche Börse AG (Ticker: DB1) and SWX Swiss Exchange. Together, Eurex and ISE are the global market leader in individual equity and equity index derivatives.

CONTACT:

Media:
Molly H. McGregor
International Securities Exchange
212-897-0275
[email protected]