FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

XPRESSTRADE UNVEILS NEW PUBLIC WEBSITE AND INTRODUCES

COMMISSION REBATE PROGRAM FOR ACTIVE FUTURES TRADERS

Chicago, IL (May 15, 2000) — XPRESSTRADE, LLC, the Internet-based futures brokerage firm headquartered in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Center, has unveiled a new and improved version of its highly-acclaimed public website. At the same time, the Company has introduced a new commission rebate program for self-directed, active futures and options traders.

The XPRESSTRADE website makes a number of powerful, free tools available to the general trading public, including delayed quotewatch screens and flash quotes from all leading U.S. futures exchanges. FutureSource provides unrestricted access to futures charts and real-time Financial World News. An automatically-updating margin table gives the trading public a complete overview of current exchange-minimum margin requirements. And the Electronic Account Application allows traders to create personalized account applications online, quickly and easily.

XPRESSTRADE also has introduced a revolutionary commission rebate program for active online futures traders. The unique pricing structure rewards active traders with price breaks when certain volume thresholds are surpassed. Rebates are retroactive in the sense that once traders reach the predefined volume targets, the lower commission rates apply to all of their futures trades for the month, not just to the trades which have exceeded thresholds. In addition, the Company has moved beyond the traditional futures industry practice of encouraging daytrading through more favorable commission rates. Now, XPRESSTRADE will grant preferential prices to traders who use market orders to enter and offset futures positions, regardless of whether such transactions are daytrades or long-term position trades. This innovative pricing–more similar to the commission rate structures at several well-known online stockbrokers–is expected to be very attractive to large, active, self-directed futures traders, as well as to traders who simply prefer to enter and exit positions using market orders.

XPRESSTRADE places one of the futures industry’s most powerful arsenal of tools and services–including Internet trading, quotes/charts/news, and real-time account information–at the fingertips of self-directed futures and option traders, thereby empowering them and giving them unparalleled convenience and control. XPRESSTRADE has created a secure, reliable, personalized trading environment that requires no additional software and that is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from anywhere on the globe. The Company is one of the futures industry’s premier Internet brokers.

XPRESSTRADE is registered with the National Futures Association as a Futures Commission Merchant and clears through ADM Investor Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Archer Daniels Midland Company, one of the world’s largest processors and marketers of agricultural commodities. ADM has been a Chicago Board of Trade member since 1927 and is a Fortune 100 Company, with 1999 sales of $14.2 billion and shareholders’ equity of $6.2 billion.

Contacts: Marcia E. Cremin, Philip D. Kepler, or Daniel E. O'Neil