CME Group is a combined entity formed by the 2007 merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). We provide the widest range of benchmark futures and options products available on any exchange, covering all major asset classes. Together, we offer our customers and the global marketplace more than 250 years of exchange expertise, and we are dedicated to ongoing innovation and unsurpassed customer service.

Specifically, we offer futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, commodities, energy, and alternative investment products such as weather and real estate. Three quarters of our trading volume comes from trades made electronically on our CME Globex electronic trading platform.

We serve customers around the world with a global product line, virtually around-the-clock electronic trading and strategic alliances with other exchanges. We also offer a number of programs and products designed specifically to appeal to a global audience. Customers from more than 80 countries trade our products.

CME Clearing matches and settles our trades and guarantees the creditworthiness of every transaction that takes place in our markets.

CME Group is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ under the symbol "CME."

CME Group Strengths

Leading Size and Scale
When you trade at CME Group, you benefit from the liquidity of trading at the largest and most diverse exchange in the world. We handle more than one billion contracts per year, worth more than $1,000 trillion. Our deep liquidity, provided by massive scale and product diversity, supports our customers' ability to execute large purchase and sales orders quickly and efficiently

Most Diverse Product Line
A proven leader in product innovation, CME Group is the only exchange to offer access to all major asset classes from a single trading platform and floor. These include products based on the U.S. interest rate yield curve, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural and industrial commodities, energy and alternative investment products, such as weather and real estate. Many of our largest contracts serve as benchmarks for investors worldwide.

Superior Trading Technology
With vast capability to facilitate the most complex and demanding trading, the CME Globex platform offers trading virtually 24 hours a day throughout the trading week – more than any other exchange in the world. There are more than 1,100 direct customer connections to CME Globex, as well as eight telecommunications hubs in key financial centers in Europe and Asia. These hubs provide non-U.S. customers with reduced connectivity costs and fast, efficient access to our electronic markets.

Financial Safeguards
CME Clearing – the largest derivatives clearing facility in the world – protects the financial integrity of our markets by serving as the counterparty to every trade and virtually eliminating credit risk. It is responsible for settling trading accounts, clearing trades, collecting and maintaining performance bond funds, regulating delivery and reporting trading data. CME Clearing limits accumulation of losses or debt with twice daily mark-to-market settlement.

Transparent and Anonymous Marketplace
Our markets are fair, transparent and anonymous, and our electronic trading platform offers the same opportunities for all participants. Individual investors, hedge funds and large institutions alike see and have access to the same prices with complete anonymity in all bids, offers and execution reports.

©2008 CME Group, Inc.