The GSCI is a world production-weighted commodity index, which next year will be composed of 25 liquid exchange-traded futures contracts. The GSCI includes energy, industrial metals, precious metals, agricultural and livestock products. The 2003 GSCI will include all of the futures contracts in the 2002 GSCI, except for platinum. Platinum no longer qualifies for inclusion and will be deleted from the commodity index, and the revision will change the number of commodities represented in the index from 26 to 25.
The GSCI has become the premier global commodity benchmark for measuring investment performance in the commodity markets, according to Goldman Sachs. Designed as a reliable and publicly available benchmark, the GSCI tracks real economic activity as well as measuring the level of world commodity prices. CME introduced futures and options on the GSCI in July 1992. Additional information about the GSCI and the production weights of each commodity is available on the CME Web site, www.cme.com or on the Goldman Sachs Web site at www.gs.com/gsci/
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. is the largest futures exchange in the United States and the second largest exchange in the world for the trading of futures and options on futures. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on its trading floors and GLOBEX around-the-clock electronic trading platform. CME offers futures contracts and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moves about $1.7 billion per day in settlement payments and manages $27.7 billion in collateral deposits. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc.
Goldman Sachs is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of services worldwide to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high net worth individuals. Founded in 1869, it is one of the oldest and largest investment banking firms. The firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and other major financial centers around the world.
