CHICAGO and MEXICO CITY, March 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, and the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV), the financial exchange operator in Mexico, today announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership that includes an order routing agreement for derivatives products. CME Group has purchased shares in the Mexican exchange valued at $17 million, or approximately 1.9 percent of outstanding BMV shares, as part of the equity portion of the agreement. Additionally, the Control Trust of BMV has granted CME Group the right to nominate a member to BMV Board of Directors and the two exchange operators have signed a memorandum of understanding covering activities aimed at enhancing the partnership between the two exchanges.

Through the agreement, CME Group will become the exclusive exchange provider of derivatives order routing services to BMV outside Latin America, and BMV will be the exclusive exchange provider of derivatives order routing services to CME Group in Mexico. BMV’s derivative products are offered through its derivatives subsidiary, MexDer.

CME Group and BMV have also agreed to pursue potential joint initiatives including product development, marketing and customer education as well as clearing opportunities. Additionally, BMV, CME Group and its Global Preferred Strategic Partner BM&FBOVESPA will initiate discussions about the aforementioned transaction and other commercial opportunities.

“Latin America is a key market for CME Group,” said Terry Duffy, CME Group Executive Chairman. “We are pleased to announce this new partnership with BMV which furthers our global strategy to offer customers increased access to our products while, at the same time, allowing BMV to use the CME Globex trading network to increase distribution of their products in North America.”

“With Mexico’s standing as the 13th largest economy and one of our country’s most significant trading partners, we are pleased to work with BMV to facilitate global hedging and risk management activity in our respective markets,” said Craig Donohue, CME Group Chief Executive Officer. “In addition to providing CME Group customers with our own highly liquid products in interest rates, equities, foreign exchange, commodities, energy and metals, the order routing agreement announced today will soon broaden efficient access on or through our CME Globex electronic trading platform to financial markets in Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, Dubai and Malaysia.”

“With this operation BMV increases its presence in the international markets. Greater distribution capabilities are a key part of our strategy to attract more investors to Mexico,” said Luis Tellez BMV Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Allowing international investors an easier access into MexDer will improve liquidity and develop the local market. At the same time this agreement will provide Mexican investors with more tools to manage their portfolios.”

The order routing arrangement, which is scheduled to begin in 2011, will give BMV customers access to CME Group’s benchmark derivatives contracts including interest rates, foreign currencies, equity indexes, energy, metals and agricultural commodities. It will also give CME Group customers access to BMV’s interest rate and equity index derivatives.

Barclays Capital is acting as financial advisor to CME Group, and Mijares, Angoitia, Cortes y Fuentes, S.C. is acting as CME Group’s legal advisor.

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CHICAGO and NEW YORK, March 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives exchange, and Dow Jones & Company today announced that the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice have granted early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act for the companies’ previously announced index services joint venture, satisfying one of the conditions to the closing of the transaction. The companies expect to close the transaction, subject to the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions, by the end of March 2010.

On February 10, 2010, CME Group and Dow Jones announced that they signed a definitive agreement in which CME Group will take a 90 percent ownership interest and Dow Jones will take a 10 percent ownership interest in a new joint venture that will own the Dow Jones Indexes, which includes The Dow Jones Industrial Average and approximately 130,000 index properties.

CME Group is the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) is where the world comes to manage risk. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, weather and real estate. CME Group brings buyers and sellers together through its CME Globex electronic trading platform and its trading facilities in New York and Chicago. CME Group also operates CME Clearing, one of the largest central counterparty clearing services in the world, which provides clearing and settlement services for exchange-traded contracts, as well as for over-the-counter derivatives transactions through CME ClearPort. These products and services ensure that businesses everywhere can substantially mitigate counterparty credit risk in bot h listed and over-the-counter derivatives markets.

The Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME Group, Globex, E-mini and CME ClearPort are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago. NYMEX and New York Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Further information about CME Group (Nasdaq: CME) and its products can be found at www.cmegroup.com.

Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV; www.newscorp.com) and a leading provider of global news and business information. Its principal products include The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Barron’s, MarketWatch and Dow Jones Indexes. Its Local Media Group operates community-based newspapers and Web sites. Dow Jones also provides news content to television and radio stations.

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CHICAGO and LONDON, Feb. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today released results from its third annual Global Foreign Exchange (FX) Market Study of both cash and exchange-traded FX products. Overall, concerns over counterparty risk remain high, albeit reduced slightly from last year.

“This year’s study with our partner ClientKnowledge illustrates that there continues to be a fundamental shift in the global FX market towards risk mitigation,” said Derek Sammann, Managing Director of Financial Products, CME Group. “Investors continue to look for alternative ways to mitigate counterparty risk in both the over-the-counter (OTC) and futures markets. By offering liquidity, transparency and credit risk mitigation, we provide investors with the solutions they need to manage their risk on exchange. In addition, we plan to offer a post-execution clearing service for OTC FX trades through CME ClearPort giving market participants increased security, efficiency and flexibility.”

“The combination of the global credit crisis and development of e-trading has resulted in a greater focus on post-trade services, risk management and increased efficiency,” said David Poole, COO ClientKnowledge. “FX market participants are balancing taking advantage of opportunities for increased revenue whilst accounting for market, settlement and systemic risk.”

At the time the survey was conducted (September 2009), traders revealed changing priorities when assessing their concerns in troubled markets. The Global FX Market Study showed the following:

Banks cite settlement risk as their biggest concern when supplying e-pricing, up to 69 percent from 52 percent last year*. Worries about counterparty risk remain high, with two-thirds of those surveyed citing it as a concern in 2009. Concern about latency saw a 13 percent increase, up from 16 percent to 29 percent.
When assessing systemic risk:
Investors are more concerned by economic problems than banks. Back office and settlement limitations emerged as the biggest concern for banks, increasing to 47 percent, up more than twice the 16 percent cited in 2008. Worries about a liquidity crunch dropped significantly from 51 percent in 2008 to 33 percent in 2009, and credit or bank insolvency remains nearly unchanged at 26 percent, down from 27 percent in 2008.
Investors are more concerned about credit/bank insolvency in their view of exposure. Highly active investors’ concern over credit/bank insolvency is at 44 perc ent, up from 36 percent in 2008. Liquidity concerns, the topmost worry in 2008, came in second at 36 percent. Worries regarding macro-economic problems jumped back up to 31 percent, from 14 percent in 2008.
In employing options, banks and investors placed more focus on plain vanilla options versus barrier and exotic options, suggesting that both banks and investors are making the move back to simplicity, liquidity and transparency when trading options. Trading more complex options may be a more effective hedge now, but managing the risk over the life of the derivative still remains a major consideration.

The research was conducted by ClientKnowledge, the provider of expert research, analytics and strategy for the wholesale financial markets. A summary of the survey is available at www.cmegroup.com/globalfxstudy.

Video content from Derek Sammann can be found here:http://powerhost.powerstream.net/008/00102/100210Sammann1.wmv

With CME Group FX, customers have transparent and equal access to an innovative global product suite of 49 futures and 32 options contracts. With over $100 billion in daily liquidity, CME Group is the largest regulated FX marketplace in the world – serving a diverse range of market participants that includes Banks, Hedge Funds, CTAs, Proprietary Trading Firms, Multinational companies and Individual Traders. For more information on CME Group FX, visit www.cmegroup.com/fx.

*Methodology: the survey polled 952 FX active organizations worldwide including 394 banks, 302 money managers and 256 ‘non-traditional’ money managers or ‘leveraged’ traders including hedge funds and Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs). Participants were drawn from a global distribution. The research was conducted between July and September 2009.

For the past 16 years ClientKnowledge has interviewed participants in the FX market, providing a global picture of emerging trends and benchmarking the performance of FX providers. This research enables ClientKnowledge to help trading firms maximise the value of their franchise, in terms of client distribution and the profitability of client-driven trading. Established in 1993, ClientKnowledge provides expert advice in sales, trading and associated technology, using research and analytics to drive customer recommendations. More information is available at www.clientknowledge.com.

As the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) is where the world comes to manage risk. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, weather and real estate. CME Group brings buyers and sellers together through its CME Globex® electronic trading platform and its trading facilities in New York and Chicago. CME Group also operates CME Clearing, one of the largest central counterparty clearing services in the world, which provides clearing and settlement services for exchange-traded contracts, as well as for over-the-counter derivatives transactions through CME ClearPort®. These products and services ensure that businesses everywhere can substantially mitigate counterparty credit risk in both listed a nd over-the-counter derivatives markets.

The Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME Group, Globex, E-mini and CME ClearPort are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago. NYMEX and New York Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Further information about CME Group (Nasdaq: CME) and its products can be found at www.cmegroup.com.

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SOURCE CME Group