Press Release - November 4, 2004

Canada�s largest proprietary trading company, SwiftTrade Inc, announced today ( November 4) the launch of its overseas office, Day and Night Securities Limited, in Hong Kong.

The Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion at Invest Hong Kong, Simon Galpin, paid a courtesy visit to the new office and warmly welcomed SwiftTrade�s expansion into Hong Kong.

He said, �As the international financial centre in Asia, Hong Kong offers many business opportunities for all kinds of foreign financial services companies. Our reliable and sophisticated IT and telecommunications infrastructure allow time-sensitive businesses like SwiftTrade to operate in full efficiency and effectiveness anytime.�

Welcoming SwiftTrade's expansion into Hong Kong, the Director of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (Canada), Mr Bassanio So, said: �This is a very good indication to the Canadian community that business opportunities are ample in Hong Kong. With its distinctive advantages, we believe there will be more Canadian companies setting up their overseas offices in Hong Kong.�

Headquartered in Toronto, SwiftTrade is the first and the largest direct access electronic trading centre in Canada. The firm was founded by Peter Beck, Charles Kim and Joseph Ianni in 1997.

The firm�s proprietary traders actively trade the NASDAQ, AMEX, NYSE and CME markets, executing upwards of 50,000 transactions representing an average of 60 to 100 million shares every day.

The President of SwiftTrade, Peter Beck, said, �We are extremely excited about our expansion to Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a truly beautiful city. The large population of highly educated and motivated people here have allowed us to find a team of good traders.�

SwiftTrade's Prop Traders are employed to trade a company's capital on the stock market. Traders are equipped with state-of-the-art computers and software that allows them direct access to the markets via a number of Electronic Communications Networks, or ECN's. Traders will generally buy and sell one security (stock), making decisions in a matter of seconds to capture the "spread" -- or the difference between asking price and the bidding price of that security. The company�s system currently handles between 65 to 100 million shares a day, amounting to approximately USD 4 billion a week.

Discussing possible expansion, Mr Beck said, �We also have plans to put a datacentre in the city to support all our Asian offices. We are currently working to provide our traders with access to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which will greatly expand our opportunities here.�

SwiftTrade employs over 450 Prop Traders through 21 locations from Toronto to Hong Kong. The company plans to open 17 more offices in 2005, in Canada, the Middle East, Asia and South America. For more information about SwiftTrade, please visit the website at www.swifttrade.com.


For further information, please contact Stephen Siu, Assistant Director (Public Relations) at (416)924-5544, email [email protected] or Elison Chu, Senior Information Officer, [email protected]

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