Crain’s Chicago Business (May 4)
CME’s last commodity trading pits “shut over a year ago because of COVID-19, and the exchange announced today that they won’t reopen.” CME “had already closed floor trading for most futures contracts in Chicago and New York in 2015 as open outcry had fallen to just 1% of total volumes. The options pits in Chicago, with history stretching back 173 years, were the exchange’s last bastion for old-school commodities floor traders.”
Tags: Chicago, CME, Commodity trading, COVID-19, Exchange, Futures, New York, Open outcry, Options pits
Institutional Investor (January 31)
“Bitcoin’s wild price swings have investors wondering how to short the digital currency, as there would be a lot of money to be made in the latest craze in investing.” Alas, this isn’t so easy. Though Bitcoin futures trade openly, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is charging “an initial margin of 47 percent of the futures’ value owing to the volatile nature of Bitcoin.”
Tags: Bitcoin, CME, Craze, Digital currency, Futures, Investing, Investors, Margin, Price Swings, Short, Volatile, Wild
Bloomberg (February 26)
CME Group Inc. (CME) no longer owns the world’s most valuable exchange. “Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. overtook CME as the world’s largest exchange operator by market value in December as the Chinese company completed its $2.2 billion takeover of the London Metal Exchange. The Hong Kong bourse is the largest in the industry with a capitalization of $20.8 billion.” That could change, however, as CME has been putting out feelers about acquiring Deutsche Boerse. Any proposal would likely face stiff anti-trust and political opposition.
