Ashton Technology Group Appears On Caspar Weinberger's World Business Review TV Series; Discusses eVWAP - Volume Weighted Average Pricing - Trading System.

Business Editors/Technology Writers

BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 11, 2000

Multi-Media Productions (USA), Inc. is proud to announce the appearance of four executives from Ashton Technology Group (Nasdaq:ASTN) on World Business Review. Frederic Rittereiser, chairman and CEO; Art Bacci, president; Bill Uchimoto, executive vice president and general counsel; and Fred Weingard, executive vice president and chief technology officer, appear on the program to discuss the company's new electronic volume weighted average price trading system, eVWAP(TM).

The weekly television series focuses on business and technology, and is hosted by Caspar Weinberger, Chairman of Forbes magazine and Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration. Vinton Cerf, Internet pioneer and senior vice president at MCI WorldCom, participates in the panel discussion as industry expert. The topic of the panel discussion is "eVWAP - Electronic Trading Technology."

The special episode is interspersed with a field report from the Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX), which features Rittereiser and Barry Nobel, an executive at the PHLX. In the animated discussion, panelists discuss Ashton's arrangement with the PHLX, the concept of anonymity and the benefits of "no market impact," which eVWAP(TM) offers the investor. Ashton panelists also explain how the standard calculation plus execution are performed in its pre-market opening session, and how this helps investors avoid the risk associated with "time slicing" orders.

"We turn our match engine on from 9:30 [a.m.] to 4:15 [p.m.], but we calculate the volume weighted average price of every stock that's bought or sold in our system, and we deliver their price at 4:20 p.m., electronically," Rittereiser explains. "The key is, again, this is all electronic. No human is in the loop. The system has the capacity and the reliability to handle two/three billion shared trading days and large order flow in our system," he continues.

Cerf, the panel expert, said the reason that this type of transactional functionality is possible is the enormously high speed and capability of today's computers. "That's why you couldn't do this even back in '85 when they invented the concept. You couldn't actually implement it until now," stated Cerf.

"The obvious (requirements) are low delay and high reliability for any system that involves securities trading, but the eVWAP(TM) concept, from my point of view, represents the triumph for modern computing and communication," declared Cerf.

Ashton was founded in 1994 with a primary objective of creating an online transaction system to be used on the Internet, but, as Weingard pointed out, it was the volatility of the market that led to the development of eVWAP(TM). "Paying the day's average price allows brokerage firms to avoid dealing with the hourly volatility of stock prices, but the real advantage for brokers and bankers when they use eVWAP(TM) is the ability to make trades within their own offices and do so with complete anonymity," said Weingard.

Weingard also alluded to the advantage of complete anonymity, which the system offers. "If a customer wants to buy 20,000 of XYZ, and there are no sellers, then it is very important that he gets his order back with the assurance that no human knows he's in the market for 20,000, because he did not get a match," he illustrated.

After examining studies conducted over the last 15 years, Ashton has determined that trading techniques similar to that provided by eVWAP(TM) have quadrupled, accounting for "approximately ten percent of the marketplace today," said Bacci. "We expect that to double over the next year or two so that they are about 20 percent of the overall marketplace," he further stated.

Uchimoto said future Internet strategies will combine the benefits of the old bricks and mortars with today's available technology to lower cost and "focus more of your time on the harder trades--the value-added services--that still need ... human intervention, if you will."

eVWAP(TM) has been approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and protects not only identities, but orders, transactions and residuals, if any, through T+3 trade settlement. This degree of electronic end-to-end anonymity is unrivaled at this time.

"Ashton Technology Group was selected to appear on the program because of the potentially significant impact that it will have on the effort to reduce the day to day volatility of stock prices in the financial market," said Donald Pratt, the show's coordinating producer.

Taped in Washington, D.C., World Business Review currently airs on PBS The Business Channel, CNBC as paid programming, and in prime business time slots in numerous Public Television markets, including San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Washington. The weekly series can also be viewed on TWA, United Airlines or from any desktop computer via AENTV.

World Business Review has been developed into curriculum for college and university-level courses, and is being used in a variety of business and technology courses or within the Business school libraries at Carnegie Mellon University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, DePaul University, Georgetown University, University of Florida, City University of Hong Kong, among other distinguished institutions of higher education.

Individual videotapes or continuing education systems (via Indiana State University) are available by calling 1-800-WBR-1032 or by visiting www.wbrtv.com, which showcases featured topics and specific companies' technologies.