Current Pulse

Access to Mexican Markets
CME Group and the Mexican Derivatives Exchange (MexDer), the second largest exchange in Latin America, have successfully launched their north-to-south order routing agreement, giving U.S. customers access to benchmark derivatives contracts including Mexican Stock Exchange Index futures, bond futures and MXN Peso/U.S. Dollar futures contracts. The first phase of the agreement went live earlier in 2011, and gave Mexican investors access to CME Group’s benchmark derivatives contracts covering interest rates, foreign exchange, equity indexes, energy, metals and agricultural commodities.

"Mexico is the 13th largest economy in the world, and we continue to look for opportunities to provide our customers around the world with the broadest and most diverse range of globally-relevant products to help them manage their risk," says Phupinder Gill, CME Group president. "This next phase of the partnership demonstrates how we continue to build on our successful track record of growing our business internationally through strategic partnerships."

For more information, including a video featuring Jorge Alegria, MexDer chief executive officer, and David Shuler, CME Group managing director of alliance and venture management, visit www.cmegroup.com/mexder.

Simulating Energy Trading
In conjunction with CME Group, Tulane University and the Energy Management Institute are offering a new series of commercial energy training courses in fall 2011. These two-day courses will cover everything from fundamental analysis to advanced trading strategies and include real-time strategy simulations. The courses will be product specific and are tailored to the needs of natural gas, oil and power traders. They will be held at the trading lab at Tulane’s A. B. Freeman School of Business, and at the Trading Knowledge Center located in CME Group’s Chicago Board of Trade building.

Growing Global Leadership
CME Group recently announced the additions of several key members to its global leadership team. They are Julien Le Noble, who was named head of the Asia-Pacific office in Singapore; Sean Tully, who was named managing director of interest rate products; and Michael Kilgallen, who will take over as managing director of equity products.

Le Noble previously served as chief executive officer and representative director, Japan and head of equities, Asia Pacific for Newedge, where he led the firm’s Japanese business development and sales efforts for its Tokyo-based subsidiary.

Tully most recently served as managing director, global head of credit and fixed income trading at West LB in London. He also traded interest rate derivatives at Citibank and Greenwich Capital, running a global team in the interest rate swap business, and as a proprietary trader.

Kilgallen most recently served as managing director, global prime finance for Citigroup’s equities division. He also worked as vice president, portfolio manager and co-head of trading for the quantitative equity group within Goldman Sachs & Co.’s investment management division.

Taking a Look at Commodities
The Dow Jones Indexes’ 10th annual Mid-Year Commodities panel discussion took place at CME Group’s Chicago Board of Trade building on July 13, 2011. Leading commodity experts gathered on the agriculture trading floor to discuss the commodities markets in the first half of 2011, while looking ahead to key macro themes with specific outlooks on the energy, grains and metals markets.

The topics and speakers included:

• Mid-year Review of the Commodities Sector:
  David Krein, senior director, product development & analytics, Dow Jones Indexes
• Energy Outlook:
  Phil Flynn, senior market analyst, PFGBest’s Research
• Grains Outlook:
  Jack Scoville, vice president, Price Futures Group
• Metals Outlook:
  Patricia Cauley, director, metals products, CME Group
• Trends in Commodity Index Investing:
  John S. Kowalik, CFA, executive director, commodities structuring and marketing, UBS Securities LLC

American Business Awards
CME Group Magazine and the OpenMarkets thought leadership website were honored with American Business Stevie Awards for the Best Magazine and the Best Financial Services Website/Blog for 2011.

The Stevie Awards were created in 2002 to honor and generate public recognition of the achievements and positive contributions of organizations and business people worldwide. The American Business Awards are governed by a board of judges and advisors that features many of the leading figures in American business, and more than 200 executives nationwide participated in judging the competition.

A Great Place to Work
CME Group was selected by IDG’s Computerworld as a Best Place to Work in IT for the seventh consecutive year. CME Group was among 100 top organizations honored for challenging their IT employees while providing great benefits and compensation, and is the only financial exchange company to receive the honor.

Some factors contributing to CME Group’s recognition include the growth of electronic trading volumes, the CME Globex electronic trading system’s speed and global reach, the new data center and co-location facility, and CME Group’s partnership with BM&FBOVESPA to jointly develop a new multi-asset class electronic trading platform.

Computerworld is a bi-weekly IT publication, and the list was developed from the 18th annual Best Places to Work in IT survey, which was published in the June 20, 2011, issue and online at www.computerworld.com.