Bank of America Merrill Lynch Launches Algorithm Suite for Brazilian Equities

NEW YORK, Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch today
announced the expansion of its global algorithmic trading platform into Brazil
to meet increasing demand from international and local investors for more
sophisticated trading products designed for Brazil's Bovespa.

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The new offering includes several of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's most
popular algorithms, including implementation shortfall and VWAP.

"Interest and liquidity in Brazilian stocks have risen significantly this year
and as a result our international investor clients are asking for more
sophisticated trading tools to access this market," said Steve Schneider, head
of Latin America Equities at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "We are also
seeing increasing demand from our local high-touch trading clients, many of
whom are now looking forward to using these new trading tools in Brazil," he
added.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has adapted its algorithmic trading suite for
use in more than 30 countries, and since combining earlier this year, the
group has made more than 50 specific enhancements to its core algorithmic
offering, yielding improved performance for clients.(1)

"We are well-versed in customizing our offering for new markets, and relied
heavily on local trader feedback when fine-tuning our algos for the Bovespa,"
said Lee Morakis, head of Execution Services Sales at Bank of America Merrill
Lynch. "Our clients now have a robust new channel for accessing Brazil's
equity markets, complementing our full-service sales, trading and research
operation in Sao Paolo."

Bank of America Merrill Lynch's award-winning algorithmic trading platform
provides a suite of fully anonymous, flexible algorithms with access to unique
forms of liquidity, including 15 core equity and six core options algorithms.
Clients can customize algorithms to conform to their goals and benchmark risk
tolerance, and use them to express views on alpha horizon, momentum vs. mean
reversion, and stock performance in absolute or relative terms.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is a leading global provider of equity and
options trading, sales and research services to mutual funds, hedge funds,
broker-dealers, pensions, endowments and other institutions. Its algorithmic
trading platform has earned awards for price improvement, anonymity, ease of
use and cost.(2) Bank of America Merrill Lynch is a member of more than 80
exchanges worldwide and has maintained a presence in Brazil for more than 50
years.

Bank of America
Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, serving
individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses and large
corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and
other financial and risk management products and services. The company's
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under the Bank of America Merrill Lynch brand. Bank of America Merrill Lynch
focuses on middle-market and large corporations, institutional investors,
financial institutions and government entities. It provides innovative
services in M&A, equity and debt capital raising, lending, trading, risk
management, research, and liquidity and payments management. Bank of America
Merrill Lynch serves clients in more than 150 countries and has relationships
with 99 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies and nearly 96 percent of the
Fortune Global 500.

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global markets businesses of Bank of America Corporation. Lending,
derivatives, and other commercial banking activities are performed globally by
banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation, including Bank of America,
N.A., member FDIC. Securities, strategic advisory, and other investment
banking activities are performed globally by investment banking affiliates of
Bank of America Corporation ("Investment Banking Affiliates"), including, in
the United States, Banc of America Securities LLC and Merrill Lynch, Pierce,
Fenner & Smith Incorporated, which are both registered broker-dealers and
members of FINRA and SIPC, and, in other jurisdictions, locally registered
entities. Investment products offered by Investment Banking Affiliates: Are
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(1) For example, our redesigned limit order model contributed to a nearly 20%
improvement in VWAP performance, based on a three-month review of several
hundred thousand orders.

(2) The Trade (Jan-Mar 2009)

SOURCE Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Kerrie McHugh, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, +1-646-855-3375,
kerrie.mchugh@bankofamerica.com