Chicago Mercantile Exchange

Background

At the CME, especially futures and options are traded on such diverse goods such as copper, wool, sugar, pork bellies, cattle, stock indices, tin, aluminum and wood. In September 1999, the CME also offered for the first time weather futures and options on futures on weather, making it one of the pioneers in this market segment. The CME has the highest volume of outstanding contracts, which is an indication of their high liquidity worldwide.

Leading the way was the CME, not only in weather derivatives. The CME resulted in 1992 with the CME Globex ® trading system software, which is considered the first electronic trading platform in the world. This platform allowed to participate in the trade without dealers are indeed on the floor. In December 2002, the CME itself was a publicly traded company and thus the first U.S. stock exchange for which this was true.

History

The CME was founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, where only contracts on eggs and butter were traded. She presented an offshoot of the Chicago Board of Trade dar. precursor of such exchange can be traced back even to the 1800's. Trade with a far larger product coverage developed very rapidly, so that the stock market was renamed in 1919 in Chicago Mercantile Exchange.