CME, NASDAQ Announce Expanded Partnership to Develop
New Futures Products
E-mini
NASDAQ Composite Index® Futures to launch October 27 on CME's
GLOBEX®; Exclusive License for NASDAQ-100 Index® Futures
Products Extended to 2011
CHICAGO
and NEW YORK
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (CME), the largest futures exchange
in the U.S., and The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. (NASDAQ®), the
world's largest electronic stock market, today announced an expanded
partnership to develop new futures and options contracts, based
on the NASDAQ Composite Index®. The two exchanges are expanding
and extending their exclusive joint agreement to offer NASDAQ-100
futures and options contracts at CME through 2011. Additionally,
they will launch new E-mini NASDAQ Composite Index futures and options
contracts on CME's GLOBEX® electronic trading platform at 8:30
a.m. (Central Time) on Monday, Oct. 27, 2003.
Subject to attaining specified performance criteria, the NASDAQ
Composite Index futures products will be traded exclusively at CME
and will be renewable for two consecutive four-year terms. This
represents the first time futures on the benchmark NASDAQ Composite
Index have been available for trading.
The NASDAQ Composite Index is a market capitalization-weighted index
of all the common stocks listed on the NASDAQ and is the broadest,
most well diversified real-time representation of the performance
of NASDAQ-listed companies. The NASDAQ-100 Index is a modified capitalization-weighted
index of the 100 largest non-financial stocks traded on NASDAQ.
Investors may choose to spread between the two products, for example,
in order to increase or reduce exposure to the large-cap stocks
that predominate in the NASDAQ-100, or to capture spread opportunities
between the two indexes.
"Futures
on the NASDAQ Composite Index are an important step in making the
entire basket of NASDAQ securities accessible to a larger segment
of retail investors, institutions and professional traders,"
said John L. Jacobs, Executive Vice President of NASDAQ. "These
new futures contracts can be powerful tools for risk management
and price discovery. With its remarkable track record for supporting
innovative financial instruments and its success in index futures,
Chicago Mercantile Exchange is well-suited to help us make the NASDAQ
Composite Index a beneficial tool for all types of investors."
"The NASDAQ Composite Index is one of the most widely recognized
measures for tracking U.S. market performance and serves as an important
benchmark for investors around the world," said CME Chairman
Terry Duffy. "We are pleased to partner with NASDAQ and offer
these valuable new risk management tools to our customers and to
make them available nearly around the clock on our electronic trading
platform, GLOBEX."
"Since
forging our initial partnership with NASDAQ eight years ago, we've
been extremely gratified to see the strong growth of our NASDAQ-100
futures products," said Craig Donohue, who will become CME's
CEO on Jan. 1, 2004. "CME's E-mini NASDAQ-100 futures contracts
have enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of 171 percent since
their launch and in September 2003 reached an all-time record volume
of more than 7 million contracts traded. I'm personally pleased
to once again be working with NASDAQ to further strengthen our partnership
and bring new futures and options contracts based on their benchmark
NASDAQ Composite Index to investors around the world."
CME E-mini NASDAQ Composite Index futures will be sized at $20 times
the NASDAQ Composite Index, or approximately $38,000 at current
index levels, and will have a tick size of 0.50 index points or
$10.00. The index will trade on CME's GLOBEX® electronic trading
platform Monday through Thursday from 3:30 p.m. (Central time) to
4:30 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. the following day, and
on Sunday from 5:30 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. the following day.
Jacobs added, "NASDAQ is pleased to count CME among the premier
partners associated with the launch of products tied to the NASDAQ
Composite Index. Financial products tied to the NASDAQ Composite
Index will be a wonderful complement to the highly successful suite
of products that are already available on the NASDAQ-100 Index and
the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index."
Earlier this month an ETF (NASDAQ: ONEQ) was launched, marking the
first ETF based on the NASDAQ Composite Index, and in September,
NASDAQ announced the licensing of cash-settled options on the NASDAQ
Composite Index to the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.
Launched April 10, 1996, NASDAQ-100 futures traded an average of
2,000 contracts per day in its first year of launch, compared with
an average of 23,000 contracts per day in September 2003. E-mini
NASDAQ-100 futures, launched on June 21, 1999, traded an average
of 5,000 contracts per day in 1999. Recently, average daily volume
in E-mini NASDAQ-100 futures totaled nearly 337,000 contracts per
day in September 2003.
NASDAQ is the world's largest electronic stock market. With approximately
3,400 companies, it lists more companies and, on average, trades
more shares per day than any other U.S. market. It is home to category-defining
companies that are leaders across all areas of business including
technology, retail, communications, financial services, media and
biotechnology. For more information about NASDAQ, visit the NASDAQ
Web site at www.NASDAQ.com
or the NASDAQ NewsroomSM at www.nasdaq.com/newsroom.
As an international marketplace, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.
(www.cme.com) brings together buyers and sellers on its trading
floors and GLOBEX® electronic trading platform. CME offers futures
and options on futures primarily in four product areas:
interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities.
The exchange moved about $1.5 billion per day in settlement payments
in the first nine months of 2003 and managed $29.6 billion in collateral
deposits at Sept. 30, 2003. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CME), which is
part of the Russell 1000® Index.
Chicago
Mercantile Exchange, CME and GLOBEX are registered trademarks of
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. E-mini is a service mark of CME.
NASDAQ®, NASDAQ Composite Index® and NASDAQ-100
Index® are trademarks of The Nasdaq Stock Market,
Inc used under license. Further information about CME and its products
is available on the CME Web site at www.cme.com.
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