"By adding futures on S&P's sector and industry group indexes, we build on this successful business relationship by providing investors ways to fine-tune their risk management and investment strategies in the sectors and industries they choose," said McNulty. "As the global leader in stock index futures trading, CME strives to offer its customers the tools for the most effective trading strategies on a single exchange."
"The new S&P 500 Sectors futures contracts will follow the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS), developed jointly by Standard & Poor's and Morgan Stanley Capital International, and will offer investors flexible risk management tools for increasingly popular sector-oriented portfolio strategies," said Paul Aaronson, Executive Managing Director, Standard & Poor's. "We are delighted to expand our relationship with CME to meet this investor need."
CME launched S&P 500 futures trading on April 21, 1982. Options on S&P 500 futures were added in January 1983. In 1995, CME and Standard & Poor's further expanded their relationship with the listing of futures and options on S&P 500/BARRA Growth and Value Indices. E-mini S&P 500 futures, electronically traded smaller-sized versions of CME's successful original contact, were launched in September 1997 and quickly became one of CME's fastest growing products. The underlying value of S&P 500 index futures traded on CME in 2001 totaled $8.94 trillion.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) 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 indices, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moves about $1.5 billion per day in settlement payments and manages $28.2 billion in collateral deposits. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc.
Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, provides independent financial information, analytical services and credit ratings to the world's financial markets.
Among the company's many products are the S&P Global 1200, the world's first real-time, investable global equity index, the S&P 500, the premier U.S. portfolio index, and credit ratings on more than 220,000 securities and funds worldwide. With more than 5,000 employees located in 18 countries, Standard & Poor's is an integral part of the global financial infrastructure.
