Sterling Financial Systems, Inc.
225 West Washington Street, Suite 1014
Chicago, Illinois 60606
(312) 346-9600

ARCA Order Auction Now Enabled in Sterling

December 30, 2005

ANNOUNCEMENT – TO ALL STERLING CLIENTS

Sterling is pleased to announce a new software feature in Sterling Trader® system that will allow traders to participate in ARCA Order Auction. This feature is now available to users of both Sterling Trader® Pro and Sterling Trader® Manager platforms through its order entry windows. To participate in the ARCA Order Auction, Sterling users need to indicate in the order entry window (Level I or Level II) the following selections: 1) ‘ARCA’ in the destination field, and 2) the appropriate Time-in-Force setting in the ‘Tif’ field, depending upon the auction session one desires to participate in. Please refer to table below to match the auction session desired with the appropriate Tif:

IMPORTANT NOTE:

An appropriate release level of the Sterling OMS software (FIX Handler 4.1.17 or later) is needed to support this feature. You must check with your Sterling system support representative before using this feature.

For further information about the ARCA Order Auction, please go to the following links:

Hours of Operation (including ARCA Order Auctions):

http://www.tradearca.com/traders/hours.asp

Opening Auctions:

http://www.tradearca.com/traders/open_auction.asp

Closing Auctions:

http://www.tradearca.com/traders/close_auction.asp

Sterling Trader® is a registered Trademark of Sterling Technologies, Inc. – All Rights Reserved

Sterling Financial Systems, Inc.
225 W Washington St., Ste. 1014
Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 346-9600
info@sterlingfinancialsystems.com