All the feverish activity over the last several months for the debut of the new state-of-the-art NYSE Amex Options Trading Floor in the Blue Room can be summed up in two words: GO LIVE. March 2, 2009 is the day that trading goes live in the Blue Room.

Since October 2008, when the Amex was acquired by NYSE Euronext, ’til March 2, the day the lights go on for the new trading floor, there has been fast and furious activity going on behind the scenes to prepare for opening the newest trading floor and electronic trading platform in the U.S.— a state-of-the-art hybrid trading system geared for the 21st century.

Exchange staff spanning several departments, plus clerks, market makers, specialists, floor brokers and clearing firms have all sacrificed long days and weekends to come in to build out the room, install equipment, train trading officials, brokers and market makers on all the exciting new functionality, culminating in a flurry of Saturday mock trading sessions to test the new systems and get ready for GO LIVE day. People have been staying late and coming in early to train on the new trading system.

This new trading system leverages production-tested NYSE Arca technology, which has been so successfully driving the NYSE Arca Equities and NYSE Arca Options electronic platforms for the past several years, and complements it with the LiquidPoint Floor Broker trading system, to create an exchange that offers both high-touch human trading and low-touch, high-speed, high-throughput electronic trading.

However you trade, whether by person-to-person contact or by entering all trades into an electronic environment, the new NYSE Amex Options is the place to be. Customer is king. (Have I mentioned lately that customers have priority and they never pay to trade?)

Not only customers, but all traders, professional and public, will benefit from the enhanced speed, liquidity, order executions and capacity improvements at the new NYSE Amex Options.

Over 300 people are making the move from 86 Trinity Place to 11 Wall St. New trading pits, new trading systems and state-of-the-art technology welcomes them and you to NYSE Amex Options. All of us invite you to experience it in real time, so come and trade. We are ready, are you?

Trade ‘em up!

TW