Last Wednesday evening the CME Group held a party at a popular Chicago night spot celebrating its recent merger with the Chicago Board of Trade and the anniversaries of many products from both the Merc and the CBOT. This year is the 35-year anniversary of currency futures, 30-year anniversary of U.S. Treasury bond futures, the 25-year anniversary of S&P 500 futures and Treasury notes, the 15-year anniversary of Globex and the 10-year anniversary of E-Mini S&P 500 and Dow futures. They also listed 2007 as the 130-year anniversary of wheat, corn and oat futures but who can remember that far back?
One product line not having an anniversary is the CBOT metals complex. The CBOT electronic gold and silver contracts were making a serious charge at the supremacy of Comex in precious metals with CBOT gold regularly achieving a 50% plus market share of domestic gold contracts by the fall of 2006. The competition appeared to be near a tipping point last December when Comex finally allowed its contracts to trade electronically during the day. When Comex metals were placed on Globex, Dec. 5, it began to win back its market share and when the CME/CBOT merger became final, many people thought that the CBOT metals complex would be a casualty. The service agreement between the CME and the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) would prevent CME Group from placing the CBOT metals on Globex.
But word is that CME Group has not given up on the CBOT metals complex and according to people in the know an announcement could come out as soon as this week. Stay tuned.
