      As more participants entered the SOES market, spreads began to narrowand competition for executions on both SelectNet and SOES increased. Thematuring of the SOES market mimicked the maturing process that all othersecurities markets experienced when competition increased. For example, inthe not-too-distant past, the U.S. Treasury Market had spreads as wide as25 basis points or more. Today, the same market has spreads of two basispoints or less. The Junk Bond Industry of the 1980s had spreads as wide as1000 basis points or more. Today's Junk Bond market averages far narrowerspreads of 300 basis points or less. The REIT, Repo, Currency, Commodity,Futures, and Options markets have also undergone the same maturationprocess of increased competition and narrowed spreads over the years. Inresponse to this increasingly competitive nature of the SOES marketplace,the antiquated market monitoring systems that SOES traders were using havebeen replaced by more sophisticated models.