CME Targets European Market Users With Eurozone HICP Inflation Futures Contract

Date 02/08/2005

CME, the largest U.S. futures exchange, today announced plans to launch a European inflation futures contract based on the Eurozone Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices ex Tobacco (HICP). When launched, this contract will complement CME’s existing U.S. inflation futures contract, which began trading in 2004. CME Eurozone HICP futures contracts are scheduled to begin trading on the CME^® Globex^® electronic trading platform on Monday, Sept. 19^th, 2005. Trading hours will be from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. London time; 2:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Chicago.

“With the most diverse line of derivatives products in the world, CME continues to expand its global reach,” said CME Chairman Terry Duffy. “The launch of our new Eurozone HICP futures contract will mark another significant step in our continued efforts to attract more European market users to CME.”

“Our new Eurozone futures product is designed to track European inflation and demonstrates CME’s commitment to developing new products that appeal specifically to European market users,” said CME Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue. “With this new futures contract, banks, hedge funds, pension funds and other institutional investors will now be able to hedge their exposure to inflation in the 12 European Union member states that have adopted the Euro as their common currency.”

HICP measures the level of prices for market goods and services consumed by households in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. The Eurozone HICP is an aggregate of the member states’ HICPs and is targeted to cover nearly 100 percent of all Eurozone household consumption. Harmonization refers to the fact that the same categories and methodology are adopted for the price index in all 12 countries.

CME HICP futures represent inflation on a notional value of €1 million for a period of 12 calendar months. Similar to the pricing of CME Eurodollar futures contracts, CME HICP futures will be quoted as 100 minus the annual inflation rate in the 12-month period preceding the contract month.

“Our new contract fills a crucial gap in this market, which currently lacks short-term, inflation-linked instruments,” said Robin Ross, Managing Director, CME Interest Rate Products. “The contract’s monthly expiration will generate interest from inflation swap desks at major banks as well as asset managers and active traders like hedge funds looking for trading opportunities. An active short-term inflation hedge will allow dealers to free-up their capital to create more structured products of medium and longer term tenures, thus contributing to the further growth of the European inflation derivatives market.”

CME is in the process of finalizing a market maker program and anticipates that it will have several market makers who will make continuous, transparent and competitive markets for this new futures contract. For the six months following the contract launch date, CME will offer a six-month fee waiver for CME Globex and clearing fees to all market participants.

Following are the specifications for the contract:

Ticker Symbol	CME® Globex® = HC; Clearing = HC
Contract Size	Contract Valued at €10,000 times Reference HICP ex-Tobacco Futures Index
Reference HICP Futures Index	100.00 - annual inflation rate in the twelve-month period preceding the contract month based on the Eurozone Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices excluding tobacco (“HICP”) published by the European Statistical Institute (“Eurostat”).
Contract Months	12 consecutive calendar months
Trading Venue and Hours	Available for trading on CME Globex from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm (London time) on Mondays through Fridays[1].
Minimum Price Fluctuation	0.01 Index points or €100.00 (This will render the notional value of the contract to approximately €1,000,000.)
Last Trading Day[2]	4:00 pm (London time) on the business day preceding the scheduled day the HICP announcement is made in the contract month.
Final Settlement Price	By cash settlement on the last day of trading. The final settlement price shall be calculated as 100 less the annual % change in HICP over past 12-months, rounded to four (4) decimal places, or 100 – [ 100 * ( (HICP _t / HICP _t-12) -1 ) ] E.g., for the March 2005 contract, the applicable HICP figures are those for February 2005 (115.5, released on March 16, 2005) and February 2004 (113.5, released on March 17, 2004). The final settlement price shall be 98.2379 = 100 – [ 100 * ( (115.5 / 113.5) – 1 ) ] Note that a price of over 100.0 suggests deflation during the twelve-month period.

For more information on this product, please visit www.cme.com/hicp.

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 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^® 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 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. E-mini is a trademark of CME. CLEARING 21 is a registered trademark of CME and New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. S&P, S&P 500, NASDAQ-100, Nikkei 225, Russell 1000, Russell 2000, TRAKRS, Total Return Asset Contracts and other trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks that are not proprietary to Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. are the property of their respective owners, and are used herein under license.

[1] In other words, except when Daylight Savings Time is in effect in either, but not both, London or Chicago, HICP futures will be listed for trading on CME® Globex® from 2:00 am to 10:00 am (Chicago time) on Mondays through Fridays.

[2] At the initial listing of a contract month, if the scheduled date of the release of the HICP for the contract month is undetermined, the Last Trading Day shall be tentatively set to 4:00 pm (London time) on the last business day of the contract month. The exception would be the February contract, for which the tentative Last Trading Day shall be the first business day following the second Tuesday of the following month. Upon the announcement of the HICP release schedule for the contract month, the Last Trading Day shall be reset to 4:00 pm (London time) on the business day preceding the scheduled day of HICP release.

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