EXCHANGE NEWSWIRE, 28 May 2009

ELX Futures gained CFTC approval to become a Designated Contract Market (DCM). ELX Futures targets a June 2009 start of operations with an initial product slate in US Treasury futures contracts. ELX Futures plans to announce a launch date, fee schedule, and other important facts about its start of business in the coming days.

NYSE Euronext: Liffe Clear will freeze clearing fees for three years and offer rebates of up to 50% on the interest derived from margin to secure client support.

LSE will complete the consolidation of Borsa Italiana IT trading systems, networks, mail and infrastructure services and web sites next month. The Italian IT staff will be concentrated in derivatives, fixed income, clearing and settlements, web services and front-end display screens, whereas London-based expertise concentrates on the core systems Infolect and TradElect.

NASDAQ OMX launched two new services for the Nordic marketplaces, NetClear and NASDAQ OMX Information Interface Service (NOIIS). NOIIS enables connection to a large number of information sources, providing trade capture, referential data and prices through one single interface. NetClear is a tool for automated handling of centrally cleared trades that allows market participants to reconcile all transactions intraday and support to handle deviations. NetClear also shows a breakdown of CCP margin requirements and keeps track of holdings on collateral accounts.

NASDAQ OMX: Market Pathfinders has been recognized as the Best New Data Product of the Year at the 7th annual Inside Market Data Awards event in New York. NASDAQ Market Pathfinders captures the sentiment of NASDAQ market makers as a whole and provides insight into the buying and selling patterns of well-informed market participants who are aggressively taking a position over time.

NYSE Euronext: Deutsche Bank listed 14 new db x-trackers ETFs on the Paris bourse including funds tracking: Short European Sectors, S&P 500 Short, FTSE 100 Short FTSE Vietnam ASX 200 and Russell 2000.

Shenzhen Stock Exchange will promote the construction of a multi-level capital market and shall continue promoting the reform of the systems of IPO and refinancing, enhancing financing efficiency and improving supervision system and means.

SGX issued a consultation paper on the proposed rule amendments aimed at facilitating the clearing arrangement between SICOM and SGX. The proposed amendments include: empowering SGX-DC the ability to carry out safe and efficient clearing of SICOM positions and provisions to cater for situations where the buy and sell sides of a trade are separately cleared through SGX-DC and the SICOM Clearing House.

NSE registered a record open interest in USD/INR futures of 373,165 contracts and a record calendar spread volume of 101,258 contracts on May 21 and May 26, 2009 respectively.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand this week launched its first Islamic index, the FTSE Shariah Index, which comprises 55 stocks from the FTSE SET All- Share Index with total market capitalization of $23.84 billion.

ASX appointed Peter Marriott as non-executive director of the company from 1 July 2009. Mr. Marriott, who will succeed Michael Sharpe as Chairman of the Audit & Risk Committee, has been the CFO of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited since 1997.

India´s Forward Markets Commission banned futures trading in sugar. While existing contracts will remain valid, new contracts won’t be allowed.

BME: Mexican financial group Banorte has listed its stock in LATIBEX. LATIBEX currently has 39 listed companies from six Latin American countries with a combined market capitalization of €316 billion

Channel Islands Stock Exchange admitted the listing of Max Property Group in what was the largest IPO in Europe YTD. The company raised GBP220m before expenses for the issue.

BM&FBovespa target price was raised 50% to BRL13.50 at Raymond James.
T. Rowe Price was reinstated as ``market perform'' at Wachovia.

Franklin Resources: Wachovia initiated the stock with an “Outperform” rating.

FCStone OTC volume was down 60% y/y but up 20% sequentially to 30,800 contracts in April 2009. Exchange-traded volume decreased 56% y/y and 17% sequentially to 4.15 million contracts. Customer segregated assets increased 8.5% sequentially to $818 million.

Charles Schwab reduced the amount of stock held by its target-date funds as investors approach retirement, breaking with competitors who say record market losses don’t merit changes in the target allocation.

Provided By: Equity Research Desk, www.erdesk.com