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Showing posts from April, 2008

No More Second City

Chicagoans jokingly refer to their hometown as America's second city, but that sort of self deprecation is probably more the norm outside the exchange space. For 160 years Chicago has been the center of futures and derivatives trading, but with the consolidation of Chicago's two futures giants into the CME Group, accounting for 85% of U.S. futures volume in 2007, CME Group is now a global player capable of competing in the over-the-counter space on a global basis. Just for perspective, the nearest competitor was the New York Mercantile Exchange, with 10.85% of the futures volume. The Intercontinental Exchange's piece of the futures pie is less than 2%; and now CME Group and Nymex have announced their plans to merge.