Today Light Reading is launching an expanded series of financial features, including a new Web site, Light Trading. Light Trading will track the latest dealings of your favorite (or most hated) venture capitalists, the changing whims of the IPO market, and market-moving actions by the public companies covered by Light Reading. In addition to the regular Light Reading news and analysis, Light Trading will include guest columns from the market makers of the industry. Part and parcel of Light Trading is the Light Reading Index which will track the leading public companies in the optical networking market. You can track the Light Reading Index by watching the big black or red arrow on the front page of http://www.lightreading.com, or by going to the Light Reading Index page.

In addition to the launch of Light Trading, we're adding several features throughout the Light Reading site, including integrated messaging and delayed stock quotes, provided by Stockpoint.

We're also launching a list of the Top Ten Private Companies (see Light Reading's Top Ten Private Companies), which will track the most exciting private companies and gauge their prospects for IPOs.

These features are intended to give our readers more tools to track the companies driving the bandwidth economy. Enjoy.