CME, the world's largest and most diverse financial exchange and the largest regulated marketplace for foreign exchange (FX) trading, today announced the selection of HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank, as the first market makers for the new CME Chinese Renminbi futures contracts. As market makers, the two banks will provide transparent and competitive markets for these contracts.
"HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank have a long-standing presence in China and play unique and important roles in Asian financial markets," said CF Wong, CME Managing Director for Products & Services, Asia. "We believe that their role as market makers will help make these contracts attractive to market participants and build liquidity in this market. As Asia is an important region for growth for CME, this year we have already launched two contracts with major significance for Asian market participants, CME E-mini(R) MSCI EAFE(R) futures and CME S&P Asia 50(R) futures. Next month we will further broaden our FX product line when we launch CME Korean Won futures on Sept. 17."
CME Chinese Renminbi futures contract, CME Chinese Renminbi/Euro futures contract and CME Chinese Renminbi/Japanese Yen futures contract, as well as options on these futures, will trade exclusively on the CME Globex(R) electronic trading platform and began trading on Sunday, August 27, 2006 at 5:00 p.m. Central Time (Chicago), for the trade date of Monday, August 28. CME will continue to solicit additional market makers for this contract. For more information on this product, please visit http://www.cme.com/renminbi .
CME offers the world's largest regulated FX trading complex, providing users with liquid, transparent markets, guaranteed execution and central counterparty clearing risk management on 41 individual FX futures and 31 options on futures products. In the second quarter of 2006, CME FX average daily volume was 471,000 contracts, with a notional value of $58.5 billion, up 42 percent from second quarter 2005. Last year, over 51 million FX contracts with a notional value of over $6.2 trillion traded at CME.
CME ( 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 the CME Globex(R) electronic trading platform and on its trading floors. CME offers futures and options on futures in these product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, alternative investment products such as weather, real estate and economic derivatives and energy. CME is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000(R) Index and the S&P 500(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.
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