International Executive
CME Group Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue received the 2009 Executives Club of Chicago International Executive of the Year Award at the 15th Annual Award Luncheon in Chicago on April 28, 2009.
“We are very pleased to honor Craig Donohue with the 2009 International Executive of the Year Award,” says Kaarina Koskenalusta, president and chief executive officer of The Executives Club of Chicago. “Craig has built CME Group into a venerable financial institution competing with foreign exchanges all around the globe. Under Craig’s leadership, Chicago is now a strategic and vital player in the world of international finance.”
The annual International Executive of the Year Award reflects the Club’s mission to promote Chicago as a world-class business center. Past honorees include William A. Osborn, chairman, Northern Trust Company; Kenneth J. Chenault, chairman and chief executive officer, American Express Company; and William H. Gates III, chairman and chief executive officer, Microsoft Corporation.
Founded in 1911, The Executives’ Club of Chicago is a business forum for thought leadership, education and best business practices.
Latin Locale
To enhance its relationship with its customers in the Southern Hemisphere, CME Group has approved a new South American Incentive Program enabling South American-based banks to receive discounted trading fees for proprietary trading on CME Group’s exchanges.
“This incentive program, combined with our order routing agreement with BM&F
BOVESPA is part of our strategy to encourage South American customers to utilize our products as solutions to their risk management needs,” says Rick Redding, managing director of CME Group products and services. “Customers and prospective customers alike have been telling us they want a variety of products that are accessible, transparent and carry virtually no counterparty risk.”
Small is Big
CME Group’s foreign exchange (FX) arena just got bigger by going smaller. CME, the largest regulated FX market, launched Forex E-micro futures during first-quarter 2009.
The contracts, which are one-tenth the size of their corresponding FX contracts, enable active individual traders and small businesses looking to participate in the global FX market, while benefiting from the security, transparency and liquidity of the exchange’s FX products.
“Our new Forex E-micro futures contracts provide the opportunity for a broader universe of customers to mitigate their counterparty risk by trading FX in our global liquidity pool,” says Derek Sammann, CME Group managing director, FX products.
“With the emergence of FX as a global asset class and the ever-present need to manage risk, futures customers will gain access to the global FX markets in a cost-effective, secure manner,” says Christopher Larkin, vice president, E*TRADE Securities LLC. “Forex E-micro futures provide an ideal introduction to FX and we are pleased to be able to work with CME Group in offering them to our customers.”
Forex E-micro futures exclusively trade on the CME Globex electronic trading platform and are quoted in over-the-counter terms, allowing customers to seamlessly integrate them into their systems and portfolios.
CME Group on Reuters Video
CME Group was among a select group of customers to participate in Thomson Reuters’ new global financial video programming. Currently in beta testing, the new interactive video service will offer live financial markets coverage, analysis and breaking news for professionals that is delivered exclusively via broadband Internet.
“The Web-based platform acts as a relevant content portal for producers, and will allow users to capture actionable financial and business news-based multimedia content from Thomson Reuters, third-party media producers, and investment research firms in a fast and up-to-date manner,” says Paul Hayward, CME Group associate director, broadcasting and digital communications.
The service will only be offered to Thomson Reuters clients and financial institutions, says Josh Seidman, director, business development, multimedia, Thomson Reuters.
“The Thomson Reuters media platform provides a new outlet to capture information that content providers want end users to see,” Seidman says.
Send a T-note
CME Group recently launched the 3-year Treasury Note futures contract, its first new treasury contract in nearly a decade.
The new futures contract addresses strong demand from consumers following the U.S. Treasury Department’s recent reinstatement of 3-year cash notes into the monthly auction cycle. The contracts provide a tool for managing the interest rate exposure associated with the 3-7year sector of the yield curve and also open a variety of new hedging and trading opportunities, including pre-defined, implied inter-commodity spreads on the CME Globex electronic trading platform versus other existing Treasury futures contracts.
Trading Places
Students from more than 30 universities across the country gathered in open outcry trading pits and sat in front of electronic trading screens for the Annual CME Group Commodities Trading Challenge in February.
University teams of undergraduate and graduate students competed for the electronic trading portion, as well as individually for the open outcry portion, which was held at the University of Houston and in New York City.
Starting with an account balance of $100,000, teams spent five weeks trading crude oil and gold futures. The four highest balance sheets moved on to the national finals round.
Students in the open outcry portion were judged by exchange members, trading firm representatives, industry executives, CME Group officials and staff from the blog My College Daily. Participants advanced based on their ability to follow the movement of the market, execution of orders and recording of trades.
The University of Houston placed first in the electronic trading competition, followed by George Washington University, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT. Tin Vuong, a student from the University of Houston team, was selected for a paid summer internship to work side-by-side with traders on CME Group’s New York trading floor.
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