Thomson TradeWeb Reports Record $42.8 Trillion in Trade Volume for 2005; Successfully Launches Four New Marketplaces

• Record Fourth Quarter; Daily Trading Average Tops $200bn
• 2005 Global Volume Up 63% Over Previous Year
• TBA-MBS Volume on TradeWeb Soars By 74%
• TradeWeb Pioneers Electronic Derivatives Trading; Solves CDS Market Inefficiencies

JERSEY CITY/LONDON (January 11, 2006) - Thomson TradeWeb, a unit of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC), today announced that TradeWeb, the leading Fixed Income and Derivatives online marketplace, achieved record total volumes of $42.8 trillion in 2005. This represented a 63% increase over the previous year. The growth in trading was broadly distributed across TradeWeb's 13 global marketplaces. Of note, TBA-MBS (to-be-announced mortgage-backed securities) trading volume rose 74% to a record $15.2 trillion for the year. In the fourth quarter alone, $12.4 trillion in notional volume was executed over TradeWeb, a daily average of over $200 billion. In addition to the record volumes, TradeWeb welcomed 45 new Fixed Income trading desks, raising the total number that users can now access over the network to 192.

Among many milestones were the launches of U.S. Dollar and Euro Interest-Rate Swaps, U.S. Repo (tri-party repurchase agreements) and Global Credit Default Swap (CDS) Index marketplaces. Critical to the success of TradeWeb's Swaps and CDS launches were powerful trade processing capabilities that directly addressed a proven derivatives industry need. TradeWeb Repo is the first to offer commingled dealer electronic execution and trade processing capability to U.S. clients.

"We are delighted with TradeWeb's performance in 2005 and thank our clients and dealers for their continued support, which made this record year possible. As the world's leading online marketplace for fixed income, we will work hard to provide even better value for our clients in 2006," said Jim Toffey, Chief Executive Officer of Thomson TradeWeb.

"2005 was a strong year for TradeWeb, not just for the impressive volumes traded on our platform, but also because of the innovation we delivered to the market with the launch of new products - particularly in the derivatives space. Our European business continues to flourish as we add more clients to an already formidable customer base and we look forward to growing our product offerings and our client base as we continue geographic expansion in 2006," said Lee Olesky, President of Thomson TradeWeb.

Unparalleled Growth Across TradeWeb's Markets 

Highlights of the year included:

Corporates - A breakthrough year for TradeWeb Corporates:

Five new dealers join, increasing the total liquidity pool to 15 top trading desks

Total number of trades increased 183% in the 2nd half from the 1st half of the year

Transaction volume grew 154% in the second half of the year

CP / Agency Discount Notes - Total CP and ADN trade volume increased to $9.4 trillion in 2005, a 41% increase over the previous year:

Over 40% of CP volume came from trades of $100 million or more

ADN volume increased by 59%

European Government Bonds - Trading volume increased 10% from the previous year, as the number of clients grew impressively:

Nearly 500 institutions traded European Government bonds, an 18% increase from the previous year

More than a third of the business was represented by trades of $50 million or more, affirming TradeWeb's role as the institutional marketplace of choice

Euro Interest Rate Swaps - A strong start in the first few months of institutional derivatives trading in Europe:

Euro Interest Rate Swap volume rose 63% in Q4 2005, compared to the prior quarter

77% of business came from trades of €100 million or greater

Other European Products - Trading volume continued to increase across TradeWeb's European products:

Pfandbriefe/Covered bonds experienced significant growth of 35% in 2005

European Commercial Paper volume increased to €203 billion, a 27% gain from the previous year

TBA-MBS - Trade volume rose 74% from the previous year, to $15.2 trillion, firmly establishing TradeWeb as the central marketplace for TBA-MBS trading:

The successful introduction of Butterfly trading and Reference REMICS

Three new dealers joined TBA-MBS, bringing the total liquidity pool to 19 top trading desks

A $288 billion trading day, setting a TradeWeb record for all markets

Treasuries / Agencies - TradeWeb trade volume increased by more than 14% compared to the previous year, driven principally by growth in large transactions and increased market adoption of electronic trading for Treasury Butterflies (three-security trades):

Agency inventory volume increased 73% in Q4 2005, compared to the previous quarter

Global Treasury trading volume reached $9.98 trillion

60% of Treasury trading volume represented trades of $50 million or greater

STP - Straight-through trade processing has become an increasingly important aspect of the market:

Over 6,500 users on the TradeWeb network are using TradeXpress service

1,187 new users added to AccountNet, a 42% increase over 2004

AccountNet database includes 17,224 sub-accounts, a 40% increase over 2004

About Thomson TradeWeb

TradeWeb is the leading online fixed-income trading network with over 8 million trades executed and total volume surpassing $100 trillion since its inception in 1998. TradeWeb's multi-dealer auction model links the trading desks of 36 of the world's leading Fixed-Income dealers with more than 2,200 buy-side institutions in North America, Europe, and Asia. Over $200 billion in trading volume gets executed over TradeWeb each day.

The business is also the leading electronic "straight-through processing" network for the fixed-income markets, providing dealers and buy-side institutions with paperless trade allocations and confirmations on its fully integrated TradeXpress network. TradeWeb's STP network also includes AccountNet, the first derivatives counterparty management tool and the leading data warehouse for standing settlement instructions and OTC derivatives legal documentation.

Thomson TradeWeb operates within the Thomson Financial group of businesses. TradeWeb LLC is a member of the NASD. TradeWeb Europe Limited is regulated by the U.K. Financial Services Authority.

About Thomson Financial

Thomson Financial is a US$1.73 billion provider of information and technology solutions to the worldwide financial community. Through the widest range of products and services in the industry, Thomson Financial helps clients in more than 70 countries make better decisions, be more productive and achieve superior results. Thomson Financial is part of The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to more than 20 million business and professional customers in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate e-learning and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. With revenues of US$8.10 billion, The Thomson Corporation lists its common shares on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC).