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The New York Board of Trade® (NYBOT®), the world’s leading soft commodity exchange, issued today a statement regarding the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) listing of cash-settled clones of the NYBOT flagship soft commodity contracts on the NYMEX ClearPort trading and clearing system:
“We believe the NYMEX action is a transparent attempt to interfere with the merger of NYBOT and IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) that was overwhelmingly approved by the NYBOT membership last week,” said C. Harry Falk, NYBOT President and CEO. “In our view, this has little to do with market demand for these contracts, but is an obvious attempt to prevent a change in control under NYBOT’s valid lease. The lease contains provisions to prevent products that compete with NYMEX from being listed on the NYBOT trading floor,” he continued. “Moreover, while it may be tempting for the dominant electronic trading platform to employ pricing power to stifle competition, we do not believe it will succeed. We are confident that NYBOT’s strong reputation for customer relationships, market depth, high-quality floor broker community, and license of the ICE trading platform can withstand competition in soft commodities from competitors with no prior experience,” said Mr. Falk.
Beginning with cotton in 1870, the New York Board of Trade has supplied the cocoa, coffee, cotton, citrus and sugar industries with the highest quality price discovery through its exclusive Coffee “C”®, Cotton No. 2sm, Sugar No. 11sm and Sugar No.14sm futures and options contracts. Its cocoa and FCOJ contracts have served as world pricing benchmarks to the cocoa and citrus industries since 1925 and 1966 respectively. In addition, it has developed and provided unparalleled direct services and unique support to each physical industry through such innovations as its web-based electronic documentation and delivery system (eCOPS®) along with its many certification and grading programs.
The New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) is New York’s original futures exchange, where the world trades food, fiber and financial products. For well over a century, the New York Board of Trade has provided reliability, integrity and security in a global marketplace for cocoa, coffee, cotton, ethanol, orange juice, wood pulp and sugar, as well as currency and index futures and options. Information about the New York Board of Trade can be found at www.nybot.com and www.nybotlive.com. To learn more about New York Board of Trade Futures & Options for Kids, the Exchange’s non-profit group, please go to www.futuresandoptionsforkids.org.
