Over the next few weeks, Open Markets will be featuring video interviews with CME Group product heads as they recall the events that shaped 2011, and look ahead to 2012. This week, Sean Tully, managing director of interest rate products, highlights CME Group’s interest rates business. 2011 was a big year for our interest rate contracts with new highs in open interest, a significant increase in average daily volume, and the introduction of several new products. These included the launch of ...Read More
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I was delighted to speak in Hong Kong earlier this week at the Asian launch of the Thomson Reuters GFMS Gold Survey – a long-established and highly-regarded source of analysis on the gold markets. CME Group is a sponsor of this year’s edition, but the value for us goes far deeper than this. The report – the second update to Gold Survey 2011 released last April – contains a wealth of information, including some fascinating insight into gold consumption during 2011. ...Read More
The news this week that CME Group had passed the milestone of 100,000 metric tons of coking coal swaps cleared since we launched the service in August 2011 was a welcome endorsement of the rationale behind the development of this new product – and a tribute to the industry which has embraced the change with such enthusiasm. For the producers, traders and users of coking coal, the opportunity to manage the price risk inherent in their business and obtain a fixed ...Read More
The Federal Reserve announced recently that beginning later this month, it will begin publishing end-of-year forecasts for short-term interest rates. Following its Jan. 24-25 meeting, the Fed will make public the projections of each of its 17 policymakers – five governors in Washington, and the 12 regional bank presidents – for rates in the fourth quarter of the current year. Responses to the change from market watchers has ranged from glowing: "This step is arguably the greatest increase in transparency undertaken by ...Read More
The New York Times recently published an article on its Dealbook site, “MF Global Inquiry Turns to its Primary Regulator,” that misled readers to believe the CFTC’s investigation of the MF Global failure was turning its focus to CME Group. In fact, based on our conversations with the CFTC, its investigation has not changed and continues to focus on MF Global. CME Group has been and continues to work closely with the CFTC on their investigation. To clarify inaccuracies in ...Read More
The Financial Times featured a piece this week from CME Group Chairman Emeritus Leo Melamed in which he defends high frequency trading as a national asset worth protecting from regulators. In the piece, Leo describes his experience as a trader to illustrate something we’ve mentioned here before: short-term speculators have always had a role in commodity markets, and the rise of automated high-speed trading and arbitrage computer models is simply an evolution of that trend. From The Financial Times: “When I began as a ...Read More