2008-10-01 01:45:03 -

www.optionsxpress.com - optionsXpress Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: OXPS) today announced the rollout of seven significant new features to its award winning brokerage platform. The new enhancements focus on investor education, strategy evaluation and trade execution. These unique and proprietary features are part of optionsXpress' fifth major site release of 2008.

"We are constantly evaluating and implementing

upgrades to our platform to provide the best overall experience for our customers," said David Fisher, chief executive officer of optionsXpress Holdings, Inc. "These changes will improve functionality for optionXpress customers across the board from first time investors to experts."

The site improvements are in the areas of:

-- Probability Calculator (beta) - A new, powerful, and interactive tool built into our tremendously popular Trade Calculator. This new feature allows traders to bring their trading to a new analytical level - in an intuitive and easy to use interface. An interactive chart and tabular section provide traders with various outcome probabilities, including the probability of touching and finishing higher or lower than a specified price. A profit & loss overlay combined with easy to move probability bars make graphical analysis a snap. In addition, traders can utilize a reverse probability calculation to find specific price points for further trading analysis.

-- Push Pins - optionsXpress has added the ability to use "virtual" pins which allow a customer to "pin" 5 of their favorite symbols to the search box on the Quote Detail page. The feature includes a dynamic rolling-cycle of the most recently viewed symbols that can be conveniently pinned in place with a mouse click.

-- Watch List Customization - The ability to track and watch lists for specific symbols has been significantly enhanced now giving users the ability to not only customize report columns to personal preference, but to also directly integrate alerts into each watch list. Alerts for gain/loss, price and/or volume can be set directly in the watch list for any symbol.

-- Trading Edge - optionsXpress has a wide array of investing information available in the Research Hub to help customers generate new real-time trading opportunities. The most recent addition to this Hub, under the Market Info tab, is Trading Edge which provides customers with a new potential investing opportunity each day for both a stock and/or a future trade. This feature is a valuable resource to customers who want to evaluate trading opportunities from a variety of sources.

-- Streaming FlexChart Enhancements

Chart by Percent - providing additional functionality to our proprietary FleXCharts, users can now quickly switch views to chart by percent values, offering yet another way to view highly customized chart studies.

Smart Symbol Lookup - Symbol search functionality has been greatly improved in our proprietary FleXcharts by making the Smart Symbol lookup now available directly within the charting package. Users can simply click on the find symbol link to access this feature which will populate the top ten results, automatically updating the search results as you type, sorted by Market Capitalization.

Streaming Indices - Index data for the DJIA, NASDAQ and S&P 500 is now streamed to a window within FlexCharts, giving users the ability to continuously watch broader market levels without ever leaving the charting page. This feature, like many others, can be added or removed through the customizable settings section of the FleXCharts tool.

"Our company is built on innovation. These recent additions are just a sample of the new features we will be introducing in the coming months," added Fisher.

About optionsXpress Holdings, Inc.

optionsXpress Holdings, Inc., a pioneer in equity options and futures trading, offers an innovative suite of online brokerage services for investor education, strategy evaluation and trade execution. optionsXpress Holdings subsidiaries include optionsXpress, Inc., a retail online brokerage specializing in options and futures, and brokersXpress, LLC, an online trading and reporting platform for independent investment professionals and Open E Cry, an innovative futures broker offering direct access futures trading through its proprietary software platform. Barron's named optionsXpress the number one online broker for four years in a row (2003 to 2006)(1) and Kiplinger's Personal Finance named it the top discount broker in 2006.(2) optionsXpress, Inc., a pioneer in equity options and futures trading, offers an innovative suite of online brokerage services for investor education, strategy evaluation and trade execution.

(1) "Best Online Broker" 3/6/06, 3/7/05, 3/8/04, 3/10/03, and one of Barron's Best Online Brokers 3/3/07, and based on: Trade Experience; Trade Tech; Usability; Offerings; Research; Portfolio Analysis; Customer Service/Access; Costs. Barron's is a registered trademark of Dow Jones & Company (C) 2008.

(2) "Best Online Broker" by Kiplinger's 7/06, based on: Commissions/Fees; Executions; Margin Rates; Interest on Cash; Maximum Fund Transaction Fee; Responsiveness/Broker Knowledge; Research; Web Site; Cost-Basis Data; Conduct. Kiplinger's is a trademark of The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. (C) 2008.

Fleishman-Hillard
Lauren Dettloff, 312-751-3540
Lauren.Dettloff@fleishman.com