Paris, August 21, 1998 -- Starting Monday, 24 August 1998, the limit triggering a freeze in trading of all MATIF futures contracts will be brought from 25 to 50% against the daily fluctuation limit, until further notice.

The temporary freeze procedure has been introduced on MATIF on Monday, 10 August 1998, and leads to freeze trade in contracts for a given delivery date if the price shows a swing of 50% or more, up or down, (instead of 25% previously) against the daily fluctuation limit(1)

The new comes in response to the rise in volatility observed on interest-rate markets during the last trading days.

⁽¹⁾ The freeze gives Matif SA time to contact the issuer of the order and determine whether the price swing was the result of normal trading or if it resulted instead from an error. The order triggering the freeze will be eliminated from the system without being executed if its originator, contacted within two minutes following entry of the trade into the system, requests that it be removed, or by default if the trade represents more than 500 lots. If the order was not erroneous, the trade will be executed as normal.

Contacts:
Antoinette Bouvier-Darpy - Tel. : +33 / 1 40 28 83 89
Nathalie Boschat - Tel. : + 44 / 171 332 59