To be eligible to participate in the program, a CTA or hedge fund manager must have a minimum of $50 million in assets under management, including managed accounts and pooled funds. Additionally, qualifying CTAs and hedge funds must trade more than 125,000 sides per month in FX products on CME(R) Globex(R) to receive the incentive fee. For qualifying CTAs and hedge funds meeting the monthly volume threshold, total transaction fees, including CME Globex charges and clearing fees, will be reduced to $0.60 per side versus the current $1.60 per side.
"We are continuously looking at ways to keep CME futures competitively priced and believe that eligible CTAs and hedge funds will find our FX markets more attractive than ever," said Rick Sears, Managing Director, CME Foreign Exchange. "It is important to keep in mind that pricing is only one part of the equation. CME's deep liquidity, tight bid/ask spreads and the ability to execute trades in milliseconds are key factors in the success of CME FX."
CME implemented a similar incentive program for CTAs and hedge funds with assets under management at or above $2 billion on August 1, 2005. This program also reduces transaction fees for qualifying asset managers to $.60 per side with no minimum monthly volume threshold.
For more information on this program, please visit http://www.cme.com/fx .
CME offers the largest regulated FX derivatives trading complex in the world, providing users with liquid, transparent markets, guaranteed execution and central counterparty clearing risk management on 36 individual FX futures and 23 options on futures products. CME received FX Week's 2005 eFX award for the best electronic futures platform. For third quarter 2005, CME FX averaged a record 336,000 contracts per day, representing a notional value of $43 billion, approximately 80 percent of which was traded electronically on the CME Globex electronic trading platform. Last year, over 51 million FX contracts with a notional value of over $6.2 trillion traded at CME.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. ( http://www.cme.com ) is the world's largest and most diverse financial exchange. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on CME Globex electronic trading platform and on its trading floors. CME offers futures and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moved about $1.6 billion per day in settlement payments in the first half of 2005 and managed $43.7 billion in collateral deposits at June 30, 2005, including $4.0 billion in deposits for non-CME products. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000(R) Index.
Statements in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. More detailed information about factors that may affect our performance may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, which can be obtained at its Web site at http://www.sec.gov . We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME, the globe logo and CME Globex are registered trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Further information about CME and its products is available on the CME Web site at http://www.cme.com .
