"Europe continues to be an important market for CME," said Duffy. "Over the past 12 months, we have launched a number of strategic initiatives designed to increase GLOBEX accessibility and cost effectiveness for European market users. Adding these telecommunications hubs in key financial centers will help our European customers to greatly reduce their GLOBEX connectivity charges. In some cases, the savings will be as much as 75 percent of current costs. The hubs also will help CME attract new customers to our electronic marketplace."
"The launch of these additional hubs is part of our ongoing strategy to dramatically expand global distribution and access to GLOBEX," added Donohue. "The strong volume growth on GLOBEX, which is currently up 44 percent from the same period last year, suggests we are succeeding in bringing new customers to CME who find our products to be an attractive alternative to comparable Euro-denominated products."
Customers using the hubs will connect to GLOBEX via a 2 megabit (E1) circuit ordered through the carrier of their choice.
Trading volume on GLOBEX in 2003, CME's fourth straight overall record volume year, increased 43 percent from year-ago levels, with total volume of 282.4 million contracts and average daily volume of more than 1.1 million. On March 12, GLOBEX posted record volume of 2,596,812 contracts, representing 55 percent of total exchange volume, and Eurodollars on GLOBEX also set a volume record with 417,196 contracts traded. As of March 30, Eurodollar volume on GLOBEX was 21 percent of the total contract volume.
In June 1992, CME launched GLOBEX, the first global electronic trading platform for the trading of futures and options on futures products. Initially implemented for after-hours trading of CME products, today GLOBEX is available virtually around the clock, five days a week, offering customers around the world the capability to trade all of CME's flagship products, including Eurodollars, S&P 500®, NASDAQ-100®, foreign exchange and the E-mini™ suite of index futures - the fastest growing products in CME history.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) is the largest futures exchange in the United States. As an international marketplace, CME 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. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000® Index.
