National Securities Clearing Corporation, the New York and American Stock Exchanges and the Nasdaq System will be closed on Friday, December 24, 2004 in observance of Christmas Day. The following changes in NSCC’s operations and schedules will be in effect:

COMPARISON SYSTEMS:

Trade input for OTC equities for trade date December 23, 2004 will be accepted no later than 12:00 Midnight on December 23, 2004. Fixed Income Transactions for trade date December 23, 2004 will be accepted no later that 8:00PM on December 23, 2004.

REAL TIME TRANSACTION SYSTEM (RTTM) FOR CORPORATES, MUNICIPALS & UITS (CMU)

Although trading activity in Municipal Bonds may occur on December 24, 2004, participants are requested to submit such transactions to FICC’s Real Time Trade Matching (RTTM) Monday, December 27, 2004 using a trade date of December 27, 2004 for processing purposes. Comparison input for trades of December 24, 2004 and December 27, 2004 will, therefore be accepted no later than 8:00PM on December 27, 2004.

CONSOLIDATED TRADE SUMMARY AND SUPPLEMENTAL

The Consolidated Trade Summary will be available on Thursday Evening, December 23, 2004. The Supplemental Consolidated Trade Summary Cycle #1 will be available after midnight on Friday, December 24, 2004. Cycle #2 will be available on Monday, December 27, 2004.

CNS CONTINUOUS NET SETTLEMENT:

Seg. Exemptions and Priority Requests for settlement of Monday, December 27, 2004 will be accepted on Thursday evening, December 23, 2004. Since DTC’s systems will be available on Christmas Eve, NSCC’s time schedules for CNS output will change. CNS activity normally due for distribution on Thursday night/Friday morning will be available to participants on Friday night/Saturday morning (24 hours later than usual). NSCC reports, and Machine Readable Output (MRO) affected by this change include: