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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kemble s. matter who wrote (140246)	8/23/1999 5:30:00 PM
From: Dorine Essey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Hi kemble, I didn't see this posted before: Dorine By Ann Keeton CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--Like so many Backstreet Boys fans lining up at Ticketmaster, pit traders at the Chicago Board Options Exchange queued up as early as 10 p.m. Sunday to compete for a front-row spot Monday in the new Dell Computer Corp. (DELL) trading pit at the exchange. The doors opened at 6 a.m., and when CBOE Chairman William Brodsky rang the opening bell at 8:30, more than 70 traders were elbowing their way around the pit. For a few minutes, traders stood silently as the series of about 180 different puts, calls and expiration dates for Dell contracts opened for the first time. It was 8:40 before the first big shout went up from the floor, and Dell trading was underway. "We see this as a very important moment in the history of options," Brodsky told Dow Jones Newswires. With Dell opening at CBOE, two options exchanges are trading the same listing for the first time. Until Monday, CBOE, American Stock Exchange, Pacific exchange and Philadelphia exchange had a tacit agreement to maintain exclusive listings on their options. Brodsky said CBOE had been considering listing options traded at other exchanges. "It's a signal of the increasing and intensifying competition among the exchanges," he said. CBOE should be trading more than 20,000 Dell contracts a day in another two weeks, he said. That's in line with volume on International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), America Online Inc. (AOL) and Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), the most important options contracts at the exchange. Brodsky said 50% of the exchange's volume is retail, and it's growing quickly. "The demographics continue to support the number of young, affluent customers who are investing in the stock market and are comfortable using options," he said. With the addition of Dell, CBOE's all-electronic retail trading system jumped Monday from trading lots of 20 different contracts to lots of 50 contracts. While the exchange said it doesn't have specific plans for launching other multiple-listed contracts, some key contracts not trading there include Microsoft (MSFT), Intel Corp. (INTC) and Walt Disney Co. (DIS). "We'll take a wait-and-see approach to see how Dell does before we talk about adding other new contracts," said Lee Tenzer of LETCO Trading LP, the designated primary market maker for Dell. "We first asked the Board about trading Dell a year ago, because so many of our customers requested it. When they did decide to list Dell, they came to us to ask us to be the primary market maker." A 19-year veteran at CBOE, Tenzer said he'd never seen anything like the traders' excitement over the Dell opening. - Ann Keeton 312-750-4120 (END) DOW JONES NEWS 08-23-99 01:00 PM