The New York Stock Exchange said it...

The New York Stock Exchange said it will review its systems and network services starting at 12:01 a.m. Saturday to ensure that trading will continue as usual on Jan. 3 without any Y2K interruptions. About 500 employees at the exchange and its data-processing unit, Securities Industry Automation Corp., will review their systems, including trading, regulatory and corporate systems, to make sure they are operating normally, the NYSE said. The Y2K assessment, testing, contingency planning and “zero hour� preparations have been in the works for more than three years, the exchange said. In 1996, the NYSE assigned Securities Industry Automation to handle Y2K preparations.

The biggest securities firms in the U.S. have said they are confident that they will not experience any Y2K-related problems. The concern is that computers may read the last two digits of the new year as 1900, rather than 2000, causing some of them to fail. Wall Street securities firms have spent more than $5 billion to prevent such problems. Thousands of financial-industry employees from around the world will be at work at midnight tomorrow to deal with any Y2K-related computer problems.