Standard & Poor's Announces First S&P 500 Constituents to Participate in Amex Pricing Pilot Program NEW YORK, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- As previously announced on October 8th, Standard & Poor's, a leading provider of independent investment research, indices, and ratings will conduct a pilot program in which the S&P 500 will be calculated using closing prices as determined on the American Stock Exchange (Amex) for 12 NASDAQ-listed stocks. This trial period will begin with six stocks on Monday, December 1, 2003 and continue through early next year. The second set of six stocks will be announced in December. The pilot program will not affect the intra-day, real-time calculation of the S&P 500. The first six stocks to be included in the program are: Company Name Symbol Huntington Bancshares HBAN Genzyme Corp. GENZ Starbucks Corp. SBUX Staples Inc. SPLS Altera Corp. ALTR NVIDIA Corp. NVDA Standard & Poor's is implementing this pilot program to test if the market auction system used by the Amex provides better results for index users than the dealer system used by NASDAQ. Standard & Poor's will announce before the end of the trial period whether it will expand the pilot to additional NASDAQ-listed stocks or conclude the pilot and revert to its current policy of using NASDAQ closing prices for NASDAQ-listed stocks to determine S&P 500 closing values. More information about the pilot program, including a Q&A, can be found on the website http://www.standardandpoors.com/indices. About Standard & Poor's Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE:MHP), is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research, data and valuations. With 5000 employees located in 20 countries, Standard & Poor's is an essential part of the world's financial infrastructure and has played a leading role for more than 140 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions. For more information, visit http://www.standardandpoors.com/. Lynn Cohn Communications Manager 212-438-1650 Lynn_cohn@standardandpoors.com (MHP HBAN GENZ SBUX SPLS ALTR NVDA) DATASOURCE: Standard & Poor's CONTACT: David M. Blitzer Managing Director & Chairman of the Index Committee (+1) 212-438-3907 Web site: http://www.standardandpoors.com/ http://www.standardandpoors.com/indices

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