At least that’s what it seems like in New York, where Nymex Holdings, the parent of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), is slashing costs through the next three months, specifically targeting the population of its trading floor, which has seen volume dwindle as more contracts are traded through an electronic alliance with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).
Floor trading volume dropped by half in the second quarter of 2007 compared with last year, when Nymex agreed to start trading its contracts on the CME’s Globex electronic system. Energy futures and options volume averaged 257,000 contracts on the Nymex in the second quarter, compared with 537,000 in the same period last year. Meanwhile, electronic trading volume soared more than 400%.
Nymex Chairman Richard Schaeffer indicated in a conference call this week that changes involving the trading floor may be coming sooner rather than later. A Forbes story quotes Schaeffer as saying, “These [changes] aren’t things that are going to be put off for six months.”
