ELECTRONIC TRADING BRIEFS

* Pershing LLC is offering its customers access to Dene International's Dene Gate Software. * NYFIX Transaction Services received approval to become an Electronic Access Member of the International Securities Exchange. * Swapstream reached an agreement to interface with SwapsWire, an integrated, electronic- processing-network for derivatives. * TradeWeb reports an 80 percent increase in trading of fixed-income securities during the first quarter of 2003.

Pershing LLC is offering its introducing broker/dealer customers access to online foreign-exchange trading through Dene International's Dene Gate Software. The FX trading tool, which has been customized for institutional trading desks, will be available through NetExchange Pro, Pershing's Internet-based account- management and trading platform for investment professionals. Dene's GATE enables Pershing to meet customer demand for an automated FX product from the desktop.

NYFIX Transaction Services, a broker/dealer subsidiary of NYFIX, Inc., received approval to become an Electronic Access Member of the International Securities Exchange, the only fully electronic-U.S.-options exchange. NYFIX plans to introduce direct-electronic access to U.S. options markets, including the ISE. NYFIX will integrate the direct-access capability into a user-friendly analytical package with the new release of its trading systems.

Swapstream—a new trading platform for swap and over-the-counter derivatives slated to go live in the second quarter of 2003—reached an agreement to interface with SwapsWire, an integrated, electronic- processing-network for derivatives. SwapsWire, a consortium of 23 leading derivatives dealers, provides a network for brokers and dealers to confirm deals in real time.

TradeWeb reports that during the first quarter of 2003, institutional investors traded over $3.75 trillion in fixed-income securities over the electronic fixed-income trading platform—an 80 percent increase over the same period last year. TradeWeb attributes the results to greater acceptance of the multi-dealer auction model by investors and dealers and to favorable bond market conditions. In mortgages, more than $1 trillion in TBA-MBS was traded—a 400 percent increase over the same period last year. Trading in commercial paper also topped $1 trillion, a 44 percent increase above the $700 billion for the year-ago period.