Definition of Pacific Exchange (PCX)

founded in 1882 as the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange, a regional market for securities of companies formed during the California Gold Rush. It is now the fourth largest stock options exchange in the world, with average daily volume of more than 500,000 options contracts on more than 1,800 stocks. With its new trading platform, PCX Plus, the Pacific is moving toward fully electronic options trading, a position it expects to reach in mid-2006. More than 95% of PCX options trades are already handled electronically. Options trading hours: 9:30 A.M. to 4:02 P.M., Monday to Friday. In 2002, the PCX and its partner, Archipelago, an electronic communications network (ECN), launched the Archipelago Exchange (ArcaEx), the first fully electronic national stock market for NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ Stock Market stocks. ArcaEx operates as a regulated facility of the PCX, from 3:30 A.M. (Eastern) to 8 P.M., with average daily trading volume of more than 750 million shares. Archipelago plans to acquire the PCX late in 2005, and then merge with the New York Stock Exchange in 2006. The Pacific Exchange has been the leading source for innovation among exchanges, introducing net clearance and settlement systems in 1957; the world's first electronic trading system (1969); and the first U.S. exchange to demutualize, converting from a nonprofit membership organization into a for-profit corporation. www.pacificex.com.