ATTENTION: MANAGING PARTNER/OFFICER, OPERATIONS PARTNER/OFFICER, MANAGER P&S DEPARTMENT, MANAGER DATA PROCESSING DEPARTMENT

As announced in important notice A 5313, P&S 4883 dated August 22, 2001, the National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC), a subsidiary of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), is in the process of providing intra-day reporting of trade output from all marketplaces. It will help pave the way for a straight-through-processing (STP) environment.

In addition to the current end-of-day reporting of over-the-counter (OTC) equity related trading activity, effective as of December 7, 2001, NSCC implemented an enhancement that makes output available intra-day for all such activity, in the approximate sequence in which input is received from the Nasdaq and ECNs/QSRs.

The new intra-day output will be made available in machine-readable (MRO) form only, and will encompass OTC equity contract output currently reported in the following end-of-day reports/files:

• OTC Locked-in Trades (Includes QSRs)
• OTC Second Session 'T' Trades

NSCC had previously informed participants that the NSCC comparison service would be discontinued by year-end 2002. Please be advised that this plan has been postponed until further notice. OTC equity trade data sent to the NSCC comparison service will not be included in the intra-day output process until the first quarter of 2002. Participants will continue to see this information through the current end-of-day output process.

There will not be any changes to the existing methods of trade reporting. End-of-day print and data files will continue to be provided; however, participants are advised that all end-of-day reporting of trade activity will be phased out at some point in the future. As a result, participants are encouraged to utilize this new service as soon as practical.

SCHEDULE OF AVAILABILITY
MRO intra-day multi-cycle output for Over-the-Counter trades will be available according to the following schedule:

The current standard AutoRoute header record should be used to identify the multi-cycle transmission counter. A final output cycle indicator will be available on the AutoRoute header in the first quarter of 2002. For detailed information regarding AutoRoute header record information, please refer to the NSCC Website http://formats.nscc.com under the Master Files category in the View by Product Group section.

PROCESSING OF INTRA-DAY REJECTS
The final validation of intra-day rejects will occur after the NSCC security and participant master files have been updated (between 5 and 6 p.m.). As a result, intra-day rejects involving potentially valid CUSIP or participant numbers will be displayed in the 6:30 p.m. intra-day output file. All other intra-day rejects will be displayed on the appropriate intra-day output file.

MAPPING OF CURRENT TO NEW FORMATS
For your convenience, NSCC has mapped the two current OTC machine-readable output formats (AutoRoute numbers: 02022183 & 02022076) to the new unified intra-day output format (AutoRoute number: 02023183). Mapping details are available and may be accessed at NSCC's Website http://formats.nscc.com under the Listed and OTC Equities category in the View by Product Group section.

Questions regarding this notice may be e-mailed to the undersigned at jmanti@dtcc.com or directed to DTCC Participant Services at (212) 855-4155.

James Manti
Product Manager, 
Product Marketing and Development