The Common Clearing Link began operation on Monday, Nov. 24, when it began to provide back-office processing of CBOT's agricultural, Fed funds, swap, muni and DowSM futures and options on futures contracts. CME cleared 9.5 million contracts for the CBOT in 2003. Open interest for CBOT contracts cleared by CME was 2.7 million open positions at Dec. 31, 2003.
"We are thrilled to have successfully implemented the second phase of our Common Clearing Link with the Chicago Board of Trade," said Terry Duffy, CME Chairman. "On Jan. 2, as CME began clearing all of CBOT's financial products, including their benchmark Treasury products, we seamlessly converted 4,493,252 of open interest to our Clearing House - effectively making CME the largest clearing organization in the world. We want to thank all of the firms and staff members of both exchanges who have been working very hard over the past several months and through the New Year's holiday to ensure such a smooth transition. We are especially pleased to start this new year by providing our market participants with the full savings of at least $1.6 billion that is made possible by the high correlation between CME and CBOT products."
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. The exchange moved about $1.4 billion per day in settlement payments in 2003 and managed $37.6 billion in collateral deposits at Dec. 31, 2003, including $1.5 billion in deposits for non-CME products. 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. Further information about CME and its products is available on the CME Web site at www.cme.com.
