CME To Lower Cost Of Market Quotes To Retail Investors

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) will begin offering real-time quotations on its market data to individual investors at dramatically lower rates. Under the program, a new class of "non-professional investors" will be able to subscribe to all CME price and volume data in each of the four product areas for a monthly fee of $10. The new program, recently approved by the CME Board of Directors, will become effective January 3, 2000. The CME is the first futures exchange to establish the new non-professional market data pricing structure due to growing demand for the services among individual investors. The program will make it easier for individual investors to participate in the futures markets. Similar programs have been established in the equities markets. "By making price and trading volume information more widely available to individual investors, we will further enhance the price transparency of our markets," said Buck Haworth, a member of the CME Board and Chairman of its Market Data Services Committee. "This will ultimately benefit all market participants." Haworth noted that there has been growing demand from retail investors for market information on CME products, especially in its new fast-growing "E-mini" stock market indexes - the E-mini S&P 500 and the E-mini Nasdaq 100. CME market quotes are available to the business community and the general public through over 120 business information and Internet service providers, listed on the CME's Web site at www.cme.com. Persons interested in obtaining further information about the program can contact the CME via e-mail at: ticker@cme.com. The CME will also be reducing fees associated with obtaining market data through delayed price quote services and pagers. "We will continue to review our market data policies to make certain that they are best meeting the needs of a rapidly evolving financial marketplace," Haworth said. Earlier this year, the CME took steps to broaden distribution and increase ease of access of its market data. Currently, the CME offers for free to the public real-time quotes on selected products and snapshots of price quotes updated every 10 minutes through its Web site.