PLANTATION, Fla., July 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TradeStation, the award-winning equities, futures and forex brokerage, today announced the launch of its new forex trading platform, one that enables the design, back- testing and automation of forex trading strategies based on inside, inter-bank spreads of the kind made available to institutional and professional traders. This "direct access" forex offering delivers to TradeStation clients the inside price transparency and automated and manual strategy trading capabilities they have come to expect from the firm's equities, equity option and electronic futures service offerings. Forex trades may now be executed directly from the TradeStation order bar or market depth window, or through the use of macros or full automation. "We believe the TradeStation platform will be a dominant force in the forex industry," said Salomon Sredni, CEO of TradeStation Group, the parent company of TradeStation. "When we made this same change to our futures and options brokerage offerings, our account and trade activity in those areas grew rapidly. While of course no assurances can be given, we hope for similar results with our integrated forex trading platform." "Forex is an international market," continued Sredni. "In other words, it is a 'local' market everywhere. It trades 24 hours a day. It is the most liquid market in the world and one that appears to be growing for individual traders in the U.S. and abroad." Currently, it is estimated that daily forex trade volume for retail (as opposed to institutional) trader accounts is $25 to $50 billion, which represents only about 2% of the whole market, which is estimated to be approximately $1.9 trillion of daily volume for the traditional currency pairs. The TradeStation approach to forex strategy trading is already well known in the institutional forex trading community, as it was offered to institutional traders world-wide from 1996 through 2006 as a premium service for the Telerate feed. The institutional traders who subscribed to Telerate for this TradeStation premium service generally used it to design, test and optimize their forex trading strategies. Tighter, Inside Spreads Now Offered for a Reasonable Commission Another major improvement to TradeStation's forex service offering, which is being made available to all new and existing forex accounts, is to give clients much tighter spreads on their forex deals in exchange for a reasonable commission. Under the old way of doing business, much like the old days of stock trading before direct market access, the dealer who trades with individual account holders takes or shares in a large spread between the dealer's cost and what the client pays or receives -- typically at least $30, and as high as $50 or $60, for a 100,000 deal lot, even in a very liquid currency pair. No commission is charged -- but that is why: The dealer is making a tidy profit taking or sharing in that large spread. Under TradeStation's new pricing plan, it will be offering tighter "inside" spreads -- as small as $10 per 100,000 deal lot for the most liquid currency pairs -- in exchange for a reasonable "round-turn" commission that will typically be $5.00 per 100,000 deal lot. "We believe that the vast majority of active forex traders know this is a better, fairer pricing deal -- and the ones who don't will soon learn that is the case," said Sredni. "We believe the combination of this new pricing with the power and quality of our new, seamless forex trading platform will be an offer that is hard to match." Other New Features in TradeStation 8.3 In addition to the new forex offering, this new release of the TradeStation platform, TradeStation 8.3, contains improvements in other areas to support the active trader, including the addition of numerous fundamental data Indicators, PaintBar Studies and Strategy Components that support the design and testing of fundamental data strategies, and increased optimization of analysis technique calculations for Chart Analysis and RadarScreen. A detailed description of the new features, functions and enhancements in TradeStation 8.3 is available at https://www.tradestation.com/support/whats_new/build1353.aspx . About TradeStation Group, Inc. TradeStation Group, Inc. (NASDAQ GS: TRAD), through its principal operating subsidiary, TradeStation Securities, Inc., offers the TradeStation platform to the active trader and certain institutional trader markets. TradeStation is an electronic trading platform that offers state-of-the-art "direct market access" (DMA) or "direct-access" order execution and enables clients to design, test, optimize, monitor and automate their own custom Equities, Options, Futures and Forex trading strategies. In 2007, TradeStation was named, for the third year in a row, Best Futures Brokerage and, for the fifth year in a row, Best Direct-Access Stock Broker, Best Professional Platform and Best Institutional Platform, in "Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities" magazine. TradeStation Securities, Inc. (Member NASD, NYSE, SIPC, NSCC, DTC, OCC & NFA) is a licensed securities broker-dealer and a registered futures commission merchant, and also a member of the American Stock Exchange, Boston Options Exchange, Chicago Board Options Exchange, Chicago Stock Exchange, International Securities Exchange, NYSE ARCA and Philadelphia Stock Exchange. The company's technology subsidiary, TradeStation Technologies, Inc., develops and offers strategy trading software tools and subscription services. Its London-based subsidiary, TradeStation Europe Limited, an FSA-authorized brokerage firm, introduces UK and other European accounts to TradeStation Securities. Forward-looking Statements This press release contains statements that are forward-looking and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press release the words "believe," "hope," "will," and similar expressions, if and to the extent used, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based largely on current expectations and beliefs concerning future events that are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Actual results and events may differ materially from those suggested herein. Factors that may cause or contribute to the potential differences include, but are not limited to, (i) unanticipated delays in the rollout of TradeStation's new forex offering as a result of discoveries or comments made by or from brokerage clients and subscribers, or otherwise as a result of design flaws or other technical issues that may arise or become known, (ii) the company's brokerage clients or the active or institutional trader markets not considering the quality or performance of TradeStation's new forex offering to be as valuable or useful as the company believes they will, (iii) the size of the forex trader market not being as large as the company believes it is, and (iv) the issues, risks and uncertainties described in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including, but not limited to, the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, and its earnings releases and Reports on Form 10-Q for the 2007 first quarter, as well as other SEC filings and company press releases. Contact -- David H. Fleischman Chief Financial Officer TradeStation Group, Inc. 954-652-7000 DATASOURCE: TradeStation Securities, Inc. CONTACT: David H. Fleischman, Chief Financial Officer of TradeStation Group, Inc., +1-954-652-7000 Web site: http://www.tradestation.com/

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