Exchanges and Market Centers

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the world`s largest equity market
NASDAQ, electronic trading pioneer
American Stock Exchange (AMEX), birthplace of the ETFs
ArcaEx, from ECN to electronic stock exchange
ECNs: innovation, competition and consolidation
Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), the founding options exchange
International Securities Exchange (ISE), an electronic revolution
Boston Options Exchange (BOX), electronic price improvement
Philadelphia Stock Exchange, the founding U.S. stock exchange
Pacific Exchange (PCX), innovations and consolidation
Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the founder of futures trading
Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), home of the Eurodollar
New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), home of energy contracts
OneChicago, home of single-stock futures
Eurex US, Europe`s attempt to capture Chicago
Timber Hill, an alternative execution venue

Introduction

Technology has fueled the growth of global trading over the past decade, fostering dreams of a single universal marketplace. Yet, investors who have diversified their portfolios across borders and product lines might not always know how their orders are handled on a multiplicity of exchanges and market centers around the globe.
Rules and trading technologies differ significantly not only from one country to the other, but often from one exchange to the other. Rules change frequently too, as exchanges continue to evolve from members-owned monopoly utilities into competitive execution businesses.
The business of the exchanges is in flux, due to heightened competition and the consolidation trend inherent to a utility-type sector. A number of exchanges have already demutualized and turned themselves into for-profit corporations, some of which are publicly traded. Other markets are merging to better compete in a low-margin business where innovations require substantial investments.
U.S. exchanges face important regulatory challenges as well, with the Securities and Exchange Commission mulling crucial reforms to modernize U.S. capital markets in the 21st century.
The proposed Regulation NMS would acknowledge the advance of electronic trading and likely force the remaining floor-based securities exchanges to alter their model in order to remain competitive. In anticipation of the changes, the New York Stock Exchange has already submitted a proposal for a new hybrid model.
An even bigger challenge may come from the SEC concept release on self-regulatory organizations. It questions the "advisability of implementing enhancements to the current SRO system or pursuing an alternative regulatory model," which could lead to a single independent regulator with no business ties to the exchanges. Without a regulatory franchise, exchanges would be businesses fighting for customers.

Exchanges and Market Centers

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the world`s largest equity market

Exchanges have been part of the fabric of the American economy and history since the 18th century.
In 1790, Philadelphia merchants, who had helped finance the Revolutionary War effort, supported the creation of the first U.S. stock exchange to trade the young federal government`s $80-million debt.
Spurred by the ensuing speculative boom, 24 traders gathered at 68 Wall Street in 1792 and signed the Buttonwood Tree agreement that marks the foundation of the New York Stock Exchange. The agreement sought to regulate commissions to trade war bonds issued by the young U.S. government as well as two banks. One of these, the Bank of New York, is still listed on the NYSE today.
The event that shaped trading on the world`s largest exchange occurred in 1875 when NYSE broker James Boyd hurt his leg. Lacking the mobility to scout the crowd of buyers and sellers in various issues, Boyd sat at a specific spot and handled a single stock, Western Union. Customers quickly found it was more convenient to always trade the same stock from the same place, leading to the creation of the specialist system where supply and demand are matched in an auction process.
Today, much of the NYSE`s order flow still comes via floor brokers who act as agents for a brokerage firm`s customers, bringing buy or sell orders to the specialist post. Floor brokers, if they work for a firm, may also represent proprietary orders. Independent floor brokers perform the same task, except that they do not work for a specific firm but help handle orders.
From his post, the specialist manages the auction process, based on his exclusive knowledge of the buy and sell orders entered in his book by the floor brokers. At times, the specialist himself is the buyer or seller of last resort and will commit his firm`s capital to reestablish an orderly market.
However, the specialist must never use the privileged information contained in his book to step ahead of clients` orders when a match between buy and sell orders comes naturally.
In the past, NYSE specialists have abused their privileged position to take advantage of customers, resulting in a settlement reached with the SEC in early 2004. This also prompted the SEC to consider broad market reforms to align the U.S. regulatory framework with the advance of new trading technologies.
Competition from efficient electronic trading has intensified as well. As a result, the NYSE is proposing a new hybrid market model, which will offer certainty of execution to investors who choose that model or the opportunity for old-fashioned price improvement to others. The exchange is also considering diversifying its product offering.
But, without waiting for these recent developments, the NYSE had progressively modernized its market. Orders are delivered electronically to the NYSE via SuperDot, an order-routing system that delivers orders straight to the trading post and electronically sends post-trade reports to member firms where the orders originated.
NYSE e-Broker is one example of the use of technology in a manual environment. The wireless handheld order-management tool keeps floor brokers in constant contact with their firm`s trading desks and floor office.
Program-trading also regularly represents about 50 percent of volume on the NYSE. Interactive Brokers, a firm that pioneered the use of trading technology, regularly ranks among the top 15 program-trading firms on the exchange.
Anonymous SuperDot (Adot) allows institutional investors to submit orders directly to the NYSE without any participant knowing their identity. The institutions and their sponsoring brokers must set trading limits.
Some orders sent to the NYSE can be auto-executed on the Direct+ platform, which today handles about 10 percent of the exchange`s volume. Direct+ was designed for small retail orders of up 1,099 shares and had some constraints, such as a 30-second mandatory interval between consecutive orders.
The NYSE is now proposing to boost the functionality of Direct+ by lifting all size and interval restrictions to support its hybrid model. This will have a major impact on the market structure at the NYSE and affect not only the specialists and floor brokers but the global financial industry.
Member firms can also trade during four after-hour crossing sessions between 4:15 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on the Off-Hours Trading Facility (OFHT).
The NYSE electronic market data service includes NYSE OpenBook, a real-time limit order book that displays the aggregate volume for each price for each NYSE security. LiquidityQuote provides a single price for the cumulative number of shares for large orders on the limit order book, with the specialist maintaining the inside quote.
Besides developing a hybrid model, NYSE CEO John Thain has outlined plans to diversify his exchange`s offering. The NYSE, which once traded options, may venture into derivatives and is expected to broaden its existing offering of government and corporate bonds, which trade electronically on its Automated Bond System or ABS platform.
Another innovation for the NYSE may be to extend its trading hours in a bid to facilitate trading for European participants.

Exchanges and Market Centers

NASDAQ, electronic trading pioneer

NASDAQ may become a stock exchange later this year, a status the pioneer electronic stock market had applied for in 2000 but whose approval has been held up by complex market structure questions and pending regulatory reforms.
An important change would be to extend a revamped trade-through or "best-price" rule to NASDAQ-listed issues, which are currently traded under broker-dealers` best-execution obligation.
Since its modest 1971 debut as NASD`s Automated Quotation system for over-the-counter (OTC) trading, NASDAQ owed much of its development to regulatory changes and to Congress, which supports the right to trade away from organized exchanges.
However, lawmakers and regulators wanted transparency and fair access in the OTC market, which led NASDAQ, over the past three decades, to launch several trading platforms: the Small Order Execution System or SOES, SuperSOES, SelectNet and SuperMontage.
Today, NASDAQ`s high-capacity platform is its Market Center, a seamless environment to trade securities listed on NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange. Market Center also is a trading hub for popular exchange-traded funds, such as the QQQQ, that tracks the Nasdaq-100 index, or other ETFs listed on the American Stock Exchange.
The open-model NASDAQ Market Center offers:
- a fully integrated order display as well as trade execution and trade reporting
- the ability for market participants to enter as many orders at they want at multiple price levels
- an automated trade reporting and reconciliation system
- with the acquisition of the Brut ECN in September 2004, NASDAQ also added smart-routing capability
- multiple order types, such as pegged or fill-or-return
- multiple market participant IDs
- Opening Cross and Closing Cross, or electronic auctions that execute all shares for each stock at a single price
- multiple connectivity options, including FIX, private network, CTICI or NASDAQ WorkStation II
One milestone in NASDAQ`s history was the SEC`s Order Handling Rules of 1996 that spurred the growth of the ECNs. To stand up to its technology-savvy, less-regulated rivals, NASDAQ recently adopted some ECN features and slashed fees.

Exchanges and Market Centers

American Stock Exchange (AMEX), birthplace of the ETFs

Long before it was called the American Stock Exchange, AMEX was known as the "Curb Market" because trading was conducted by the curb on Broad Street, right by the well-established New York Stock Exchange.
The Curb Market took off with California`s 1849 Gold Rush, handling stocks issued by booming mining companies too young to merit a listing on the NYSE. At times, the Curb attracted some big winners, such as Standard Oil. In 1921, the Curb moved indoors to a building at Trinity Place and changed its name to the American Stock Exchange in 1953.
NASD purchased AMEX in 1998 but transferred control back to The Amex Membership on January 3, 2005, paving the way for the election of the a new Board of Governors.
AMEX is one of six U.S. exchanges trading equity options but is best known for its pioneering role in exchange-traded funds, which it launched in 1993 with an ETF based on the main S&P index and known as the Spiders. Today, AMEX lists 144 ETFs.
AMEX is a specialist-manned, floor-based auction market but it is developing more electronic functionality:
- The exchange reported that nearly 75 percent of equity trading is conducted electronically. BARS (Booth Automated Routing System) helps order flow management and directs orders straight to floor brokers` handless devices
- NETS, or New Equity Trading System, is an enhanced specialist display book that provides automated order update and order matching
- AMEX last year launched ANTE (Amex New Trading Environment), an options platform that supports the exchange`s hybrid model, combining electronic trading and the floor-based auction process
- AMEX provides detailed information with its ETF screener, allowing to compare ETFs by issuer, style, expense ratio, net assets, price and total return
- HOLDRS (Holding Company Depositary Receipts) are other relatively new securities listed on AMEX. They are mostly sector-based securities that represent ownership of the common stock or ADR in specific companies in that group. AMEX also offers trading in structured debt products
In January, AMEX Chairman and CEO Salvatore Sodano announced he was retiring. This may usher in a new era for AMEX, including greater automation of some of its product lines, in particular the ETFs-a favorite among arbitrage traders.

Exchanges and Market Centers

ArcaEx, from ECN to electronic stock exchange

A collusion scandal among market-makers in the 1990s prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue the Order Handling Rules in 1996 to protect customers` limit orders and increase transparency in the NASDAQ market.
Electronic communications networks or ECNs quickly became a popular place to display limit orders, posing a strong competition to NASDAQ. That trend gathered momentum in 2001 when decimalization, introduced during the longest stock market downturn since World War II, crushed margins and profits in the market-making business.
Created by former trader Jerry Putnam and built on software maker Townsend Analytics` technology, Archipelago was among the first four ECNs, along with Instinet, which founded the agency brokerage business in 1969, Island and Bloomberg Tradebook.
Unlike well-established Instinet or Island and Tradebook, which enjoyed the support of strong parents, Archipelago had to look hard for liquidity at first. Putnam conceived the "outbound" ECN model: if your order can`t be immediately matched in Archipelago`s book, Archipelago will seek a match elsewhere.
As quasi-exchanges, ECNs espoused the concept of close pools of liquidity. Putnam`s outbound ECN model changed that notion, hence the name of Archipelago, a clever alternative to Island.
In 1998, the SEC issued its Regulation ATS, which, among other topics, discussed the conditions under which an alternative trading system could register as exchange instead of broker-dealer. Eager to collect market data revenue, several ECNs, including Archipelago, filed the initial paperwork but held little hope the SEC would act on it.
Putnam thought of an alternative route: in July 2000, Archipelago partnered with the Pacific Exchange (PCX), which became the self-regulatory organization for the electronic stock market, named ArcaEx. The exchange today operates on a Sun Microsystems Solaris platform that handles trading in equities listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq as well as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed on the American Stock Exchange.
In January 2005, Archipelago Holdings announced its planned acquisition of PCX Holdings, which would pave the way for ArcaEx to become the first U.S. exchange to trade both equities and options electronically.
Archipelago grew both organically and though acquisitions, completing its merger with Redibook in 2002. The acquisition of Globenet that year also allowed ArcaEx to enter the OTC Bulletin Board arena, which are traded on its ArcaEdge system.

Exchanges and Market Centers

ECNs: innovation, competition and consolidation

ECNs became a new breed of financial markets intermediaries when the SEC`s Order Handling Rules came into effect in 1997, with the goal of better protecting customers` limit orders and fostering competition in the NASDAQ marketplace. At one point, there were as many as 12 ECNs, but only a handful still exist today and consolidation in that space might not be over yet.
Now known as Inet, Island wrote many pages of the history of the ECNs, largely due to its technology-developed by chief IT architect Josh Levine-and its aggressive stand for market structure reforms, advocated by Island then-President Matthew Andresen.
Island spearheaded the fight against the trade-through rule, highlighting the shortcomings of the floor-based auction system vs. auto-execution electronic systems. Seen as an intellectual oddity at first and met with bitter opposition later, Island`s anti-trade-through fight bore results: it led the SEC to propose major reforms in 2004 to modernize U.S. capital markets with Regulation NMS.
Island was part of the Datek Online Holdings group, which came under regulatory scrutiny and was forced to enter one of the largest settlements ever reached with a single firm. Under a new management led by Ed Nicoll beginning in 1999, Datek capitalized on its strength-technology-and was subsequently sold to Ameritrade for $1.3 billion.
The deal did not include Island, which was eventually bought by Instinet, the founder of the electronic agency brokerage business, in September 2002. Majority-owned by British market data and information services provider Reuters, Instinet merged its own ECN platform with Island`s to create a mega-ECN, Inet. Instinet also separated its brokerage and ECN businesses. Yet, the merger and restructuring failed to yield lofty profits and Reuters has put the Instinet group on the auction block, with a sale likely to be announced soon.
Instinet made its debut in 1969, as Institutional Network Corp., a financial services provider for the buy-side. By allowing other broker-dealers as members in the mid-1980s, Instinet de facto became the central limit order book for the NASDAQ market, more than a decade before the SEC`s Order Handling Rules.

Other ECNs

Brut was launched in May 1998 as the Brass Utility and was acquired by SunGard Data Systems a year later. It later merged with Strike Technologies, another ECN founded by a Wall Street group including Goldman Sachs and Knight Trading. SunGard bought out its partners in 2003, turned Brut into the second-largest ECN and sold it in 2004 to NASDAQ, interested in smart-routing functionality.
Tradebook is fully owned by market data and information services provider Bloomberg. Launched in January 1997 as one of the first four ECNs, it targets the buy-side and provides connectivity to 40 marketplaces around the world. Tradebook combines value-added brokerage services as well as ECN features.
Nextrade was launched in January 1999, filed to become an electronic stock exchange but never captured a substantial market share despite innovations, such as a foray in foreign exchange online trading and the concept of no-expiration options.
Track is a subsidiary of Track Data Securities. It promoted a low-cost, high-rebate model but never captured a substantial market share.
Attain is the ECN subsidiary of Domestic Securities and was heavily promoted Web-based access to its niche but faithful clientele.
Redibook was founded in November 1997 by Spear, Leeds & Kellogg (SLK), adopted an "outbound" model and later attracted investments from Charles Schwab, Fidelity and other large firms. The ECN was acquired in 2002 by ArcaEx.
Globenet, created in 2001, launched Bullet X, the first platform automating the mostly manual OTC bulletin board (OTCBB) market. It was bought in 2002 by ArcaEx, which has leveraged its technology for its ArcaEdge OTCBB platform.
MarketXT, first known as Eclipse Trading, was launched in January 2000 as an after-hour ECN and was acquired by Tradescape soon afterwards. But Tradescape`s takeover by E*Trade in 2002 did not include the ECN, which subsequently shut down.

Exchanges and Market Centers

Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), the founding options exchange

The Chicago Board Options Exchange was the first U.S. exchange to start trading standardized, listed options on an organized market in 1973. Two years later, CBOE adopted the Nobel Prize-winning Black-Scholes model for pricing options.
A decade later, CBOE, still blazing the innovation trail, launched options on broad-based stock indexes after negotiating exclusive contracts on the S&P 100 Index (OEX) and the S&P 500 Index (SPX). Today, rival options exchanges hope that Standard & Poor`s would not renew exclusive rights to trade those products whenever the current contracts expire.
S&P recently allowed multiple listings of options on the Spiders, the popular exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the S&P 500 index. Without exclusivity on the product, CBOE provided a highly liquid market for the product but faced solid competition from its newest electronic rival, the Boston Options Exchange or BOX.
Although it is the world`s largest floor-based options exchange, the CBOE has long sought to develop trading technology. In 1984, it launched the Retail Automatic Execution System (RAES) to facilitate electronic order execution. A few years later, the exchange introduced EBook, the first electronic customer limit order book for options.
The CBOE`s success spurred competition with the New York Stock Exchange starting to list equity options in 1985. The CBOE also innovated on the product front, launching Long-term Equity AnticiPation Securities in 1990. Known as the LEAPS, these contracts are long-term dated options and give investors more flexibility to manage their portfolios.
The CBOE also introduced sector index trading; FLEX options, which allow investors to create certain specifications on options contracts; and VIX, a market volatility index that gauges investor sentiment and is familiarly known as "fear gauge" or "fear factor."
CBOE, which had acquired NYSE options trading business in 1997 and continued to experience growth, launched CBOEdirect, a screen-based trading system in 2001. Initially used for extended hours trading, CBOEdirect was an important step toward developing its current Hybrid Trading System that combines the benefits of open outcry and screen-based trading.
CBOE Hybrid made its debut in 2003 with CBOEdirect as its trade engine. Its features include point-and-click execution, streaming quotes for individual market-makers and direct access to the order book.
Capitalizing on the creation of VIX, CBOE launched a new exchange in March 2004, the electronic CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE), which runs on CBOEdirect. The CFE started trading contracts on the VIX but has added other related offerings since.

Exchanges and Market Centers

International Securities Exchange (ISE), an electronic revolution

Trading in U.S. options was exclusively a floor-based business until then-E*Trade Chairman Bill Porter thought of creating an auction market for options on an electronic platform.
Porter hoped to bring to options the benefits that electronic trading had yielded for stock trading: better transparency, better execution and lower costs, which result in greater liquidity and tighter spreads.
David Krell and Gary Katz, two former executives of the options division at the New York Stock Exchange, created the ISE as an auction market for options on an electronic platform in 2000. The ISE`s debut contributed to the multiple listing of options, which the floor exchanges were forced to finally consider as the SEC and the Justice Department probed the "gentleman`s agreement" among options exchanges not to compete in equity options.
Enjoying a meteoric rise due to its unique electronic model, the ISE became the largest U.S. options exchange for equity in 2003. The Chicago Board Options Exchange has exclusive listing for index-based options contracts it has licensed.
Throughout its development, the ISE introduced new features, such as ISEspreads or the Sentiment Index (ISEE), which monitors call and put options.

Exchanges and Market Centers

Boston Options Exchange (BOX), electronic price improvement

The Boston Options Exchange (BOX), co-founded by the Boston Stock Exchange, the Montreal Exchange and Interactive Brokers Group, began its rollout in February 2004 to become the 6th U.S. options exchange.
BOX, the second U.S. electronic options exchange, has since attracted other investors: Credit Suisse First Boston, JP Morgan, Salomon Smith Barney, UBS Warburg and most recently Citadel Investment.
BOX introduced a unique feature: the price-improvement period or PIP, a three-second auction that allows brokers to improve the price of their orders by at least one penny above the national best bid/offer. It was an important development in options trading, while moves in nickel and dime increments. Although controversial at first, the PIP has led the ISE to propose a similar price-improvement facility.
Another key feature of BOX is that it does not have a specialist system or barrier of entry. Instead, multiple market-makers compete for orders. BOX, which does not offer payment for order flow, has captured a 5 percent market share of U.S. equity options.
Its competing market-maker system helped the young exchange capture a substantial market share in newly launched and multiply listed options on the "Spiders," the exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the S&P 500 index.

Exchanges and Market Centers

Philadelphia Stock Exchange, the founding U.S. stock exchange

The first U.S. equity exchange was formed in 1790 by merchants who traded War bonds and belonged to the Philadelphia Board of Brokers.
Long before the United States even declared its independence, then-Philadelphia mayor James Hamilton had made provisions in 1746 for the establishment of a stock exchange.
From its debut in the London Coffee House, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) appreciated the importance of trading innovations. Aware of the benefit tied to the information advantage, Philadelphia speculators set up signal relays to quickly get the latest news and rumors from New York, a system that remained in place until the invention of the telegraph in 1846.
From early on as well, investors realized the importance of market data. A stock broker named Samuel Anderson published the first list of stock prices "Price Current of Stocks," just two years after the PHLX made its debut. The New York Stock and Exchange Board, the ancestor of the Big Board, copied the Philadelphia charter to write its own rules.
In 1870, Philadelphia set up the first U.S. clearing house to settle trades and help delivery and quickly adopted the ticker, when it was created in 1884.
Consolidation was the dominant trend among U.S. exchanges following the market crash of 1929 and World War II. Philadelphia merged with the Baltimore Stock Exchange in 1949 and with the Washington Stock Exchange in 1953.
Technology was another major force affecting markets in the 1970s, which market NASDAQ`s debut. The PHLX introduced its small order routing and auto-execution system, PACE or Philadelphia Automated Communication and Execution System, in 1975. That same year, Philadelphia entered equity options trading, a market in which the exchange is still an active participant today. In 1982, Philadelphia introduced currency options.
Philadelphia also introduced its Automated Options Market system or AUTOM for electronic delivery and auto-execution for options in 1988.
As competition heats up, Philadelphia is embracing a hybrid model, which combines the benefits of open-outcry and electronic trading. PHLX XL is a new electronic options trading system that seeks to boost liquidity, foster price competition and provides certainty of execution.
The exchange also owns a futures market, the Philadelphia Board of Trade, which recently became active with futures contracts on foreign exchange.

Exchanges and Market Centers

Pacific Exchange (PCX), innovations and consolidation

The Pacific Exchange (PCX) often was ahead of its time and, if its history is any harbinger of things to come, there could well be more consolidation in the U.S. trade execution business.
The PCX`s first incarnation was the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange, created in 1882. Although the California gold rush was already over by then, mining was booming in the young state and required an organized capital market to finance its development.
Nineteen brokers decided to organize the exchange "to maintain a free and open market where the investor could convert his cash into securities and its securities into cash at will, at a fair and honest price."
Similarly, the California oil boom prompted the creation of the Los Angeles Oil Exchange in 1899. The two exchanges merged in 1957 to create the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange, the only market with two floors in two cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 1973, the exchange dropped the word "coast" from its name and added options trading to its San Francisco floor in 1976, with a focus on technology issues.
Always eager to embrace changes, the exchange renamed itself the Pacific Exchange in 1997. Two years later, it reorganized into PCX Equities, the first for-profit U.S. stock market.
This paved the way for an innovative partnership with Archipelago Holdings, the parent of one of the first four ECNs. The SEC approved Archipelago as the electronic equity trading facility of the PCX in October 2001, leading to the closure of Los Angeles equity floor and the launch of the all-electronic ArcaEx exchange.
Besides providing regulatory services to ArcaEx, the PCX continued to run its options business but quickly embraced the notion of a hybrid market. To that effect, it built PCX Plus, which allows options market-makers to trade from its floor or remotely.
On January 3, 2005, Archipelago Holdings announced it was acquiring PCX Holdings, with the goal to turn ArcaEx into the first U.S. exchange to offer electronic trading of both equities and options. Archipelago also acquired the PCX`s self-regulatory business, which will make ArcaEx the first ECN to evolve into a full-fledged exchange.
Other regional exchanges have embraced technology to various degrees to chart their future. The Cincinnati Stock Exchange, founded in 1885, closed its floor and went electronic nearly in 1980. It is now known as the National Stock Exchange. The Boston Stock Exchange, launched in 1830, is a founding member of the all-electronic Boston Options Exchange. The Chicago Stock Exchange, formerly set up in 1882, absorbed several of its competitors in St. Louis, Cleveland, Minneapolis and even New Orleans over the years and is embracing auto-execution.

Exchanges and Market Centers

Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the founder of futures trading

The Chicago Board of Trade, organized by 82 Chicago merchants as a grain cash market in 1848, is the oldest organized futures exchange.
Although experts may argue about the exact birth date of futures trading, the CBOT was already very active during the Civil War-even financing Union regiments-and trading "to-arrive" or forward contracts in agricultural commodities including wheat, corn and oats.
The official birth date of the CBOT may be 1859, when the market was granted a charter by the Illinois legislature to standardize grades of grain traded on the exchange. Futures contracts made their official debut in 1865 when the CBOT introduced standards for margin and delivery.
While the stock market crashed in 1873, futures trading continued to boom, which led to a series of innovations at the CBOT, such as publishing futures prices starting in 1877 and setting up the first clearing organization in 1883.
When the CBOE erected new headquarters to accommodate its expansion in 1885, the building was the first to use electrical lighting. By 1922, the growth in commodity futures trading was such that the U.S. government felt the need to create a regulator, the Grain Futures Administration.
Major CBOT innovations included the creation of a separate exchange to trade options, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), in 1973, and diversification into non-commodities contracts: futures on mortgaged-backed securities in 1975 and on U.S. Treasuries in 1977, while options on futures were created in 1982.
The CBOT celebrated its 150th anniversary with the launch of side-by-side trading of open-outcry and electronic trading on its Project A platform in 1998, paving the way for a move toward electronic trading for financial products.
In 2000, the CBOT is incorporated as a not-for-profit non-stock corporation and launches a new trading platform, a/c/e, in a partnership with German derivatives giant Eurex. This will help the exchange further diversify its lines of products, including mini-Dow futures and interest rate swaps and swap options.
Three years later, the CBOT announced it was switching to a new platform, Euronext`s Liffe Connect, which marked the end of its partnership with Eurex. In 2004, the exchange partnered with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange which agreed to clear all CBOT products on a new CME/CBOT Common Clearing Link.
The CBOT is a leading market for contracts based on four groups of products: agricultural commodities; interest rates, including Treasuries and German debt; the Dow Jones Industrial Average index; and gold and silver.

Exchanges and Market Centers

Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), home of the Eurodollar

The predecessor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, was formed in 1898 and became the CME in 1919 when it broadened the breadth of its offering-one egg and one butter contract at first-to include a wide range of agricultural products.
Called the Chicago Produce Exchange in 1874
Since, the CME has continued to diversify its roster of listings and is now best known worldwide for its financial products, including its flagship Eurodollar contract. Four main categories of products trade on the CME: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities.
The CME is the largest U.S. futures exchange and continues to transition a wide range of products from its open-outcry pit to its electronic platform, Globex, which made its debut in June 1992.
Globex was initially developed with Reuters and first offered futures and options on futures contracts on major currencies. The benchmark three-month Eurodollar futures and options on futures contracts started trading on the platform in August 1992, followed the next year by equity products, including contracts on the S&P 500 index.
A decade later, the CME introduced Globex`s next generation platform, based on France`s NSC trading system as part of an innovative product swap where the Paris Bourse, now part of Euronext, received the CME`s state-of the art clearing system, CLEARING 21.
Once orders for products listed on Globex are placed through front-end applications worldwide, they are immediately acknowledged and matched by the trading engine. Trade reports are immediately disseminated to the trading parties, the CME Clearing House, and the market at large.
Continuing its tradition of product innovation, the CME launched E-mini S&P 500 futures contracts in 1997, with electronic trading during open outcry hours for the first time. The contract quickly became the exchange`s fastest growing product.
Another success came in 1999 with the E-mini NASDAQ-100 futures, while "side-by-side" electronic and pit trading in Eurodollars started during regular hours. In June 2002, the CME added onto Globex e-miNY crude oil and natural gas futures contracts that clear via the New York Mercantile Exchange clearing house.
A milestone for the Chicago exchanges came in November 2003 when the
CME began providing clearing services to the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) for commodity, equity and interest rate products. In 2004, the CME became the world`s largest clearing organization for futures.
Further endorsing electronic trading, a special shareholder meeting approved in the spring of 2004 transitioning the front two Eurodollar futures products onto Globex.
The CME regularly upgrades Globex by adding patent-pending functionality, such as the Implied Pricing Functionality for Eurodollars, which allows electronic calendar spread trading for Eurodollar futures. Enhanced options functionality for electronically traded CME Eurodollars facilitates trading of complex combination and spread trades typically used with short-term interest rate options on futures.
The CME is also leveraging its electronic access to become a global exchange, setting up Globex communications hubs in Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Britain, Gibraltar, Italy and now Singapore. The exchange has developed two Japanese monthly and seasonal CME Weather contracts for the Tokyo and Osaka exchanges, based on the Pacific Rim Index.

Exchanges and Market Centers

New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), home of energy contracts

The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) made its debut in 1872 as the Butter and Cheese Exchange of New York but did not get its current name until 10 years later when it diversified its contracts to add fruits and poultry.
Founded by a group of dairy merchants who sought better storage and trading for their perishable commodities, Nymex today is the world`s largest physical commodity futures exchange. Nymex has achieved this status in large part due to its energy-related futures, which it launched in 1978 with a heating oil contract.
Success in the commodity futures exchange business does not come easily. It may be hard to believe, but there were more than 1,000 U.S. commodity exchanges in the 19th century, operating mostly as marketplaces where sellers displayed local produces and goods.
But the small exchanges could not long compete against their larger rivals in Chicago and New York, which operated centralized warehouses needed to support trading in physical commodities. The "bazaars" quickly made way for the organized exchanges where contracts can change hands many times before maturation. Physical delivery is fully handled outside the exchange, from specifically designated warehouses.
A crucial step for Nymex was its acquisition of COMEX in 1994. Comex-which first stood for Commodity Exchange-itself resulted from the 1933 fusion of the National Metal Exchange, the Rubber Exchange of New York, the National Raw Silk Exchange and the New York Hide Exchange.
NYMEX today trades energy products, including electricity, precious and rare metals, copper and aluminum as well as some stock index futures, such as the FTSE Eurotop contracts. Trading is mostly conducted via open-outcry on NYMEX, but the exchange`s futures contracts are electronically available on NYMEX ACCESS, a platform launched in 1993, after the close.
With volatile production and geopolitical conditions, crude oil is the most actively traded commodity in the world and has contributed to NYMEX`s expansion. Britain`s Brent is a light, sweet North Sea crude oil, which is an industry benchmark and trades as a differential to NYMEX bellwether light sweet crude futures contract.
E-miNY futures contracts, which are half the size of a standard crude futures contract, are in great demand among portfolio managers. They are electronically traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange`s Globex platform but cleared via NYMEX clearinghouse.
Also in the Big Apple, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) is another futures market that resulted from the 1998 merger of smaller markets-the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange and the New York Cotton Exchange.

Exchanges and Market Centers

OneChicago, home of single-stock futures

OneChicago was launched in November 2002 as a new exchange for U.S. single-stock futures, a new class of financial instruments whose trading was made possible by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA).
Single-stock and narrow-index futures were long banned in the U.S. because they involved both securities and futures, which led to a deadlock over who should regulate them, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFMA ended the deadlock by letting both regulators in charge of oversight.
OneChicago is a joint venture created by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). The futures exchange runs on CBOEdirect, the CBOE`s screen-based trading system.
Singles-tock futures have failed to attract as much enthusiasm as was once envisioned. OneChicago is the sole U.S. market trading these products today, as its competitor NQLX, itself a joint-venture between NASDAQ and Euronext, shut down its doors in December 2004.

Exchanges and Market Centers

Eurex US, Europe`s attempt to capture Chicago

In January 2003, German-Swiss derivatives giant Eurex announced plans to launch a U.S. futures market that would compete against the Chicago Board of Trade-its one-time partner-in the U.S. Treasuries arena.
Launched a year later, Eurex US runs on its proprietary a/c/e platform, which the CBOT abandoned to adopt Euronext`s Liffe Connect.
Eurex US debut has been less smooth than its successful Frankfurt-based parent had hoped for. Obtaining U.S. regulatory approval took longer than expected and a partnership with a number of Wall Street gathered in Exchange Place Holdings, has not resulted in much order flow. The Exchange Place partners were investors in the failed BrokerTec Futures Exchange.
An important part of Eurex US`s strategy was to offer clearing on either side of the Atlantic, another project that was faced with regulatory hurdles. The exchange`s Global Clearing Link started operating in mid-November 2004 and is expected to boost cross-border clearing efficiency.
The Global Clearing Link is also expected to lead to a more efficient use of capital through portfolio margining and the use of a common pool of euro- and dollar-denominated collateral.

Exchanges and Market Centers

Timber Hill, an alternative execution venue

Тimber Hill was founded in 1982 by options trader and computer expert Thomas Peterffy. Timber Hill, which traded equity options at the American Stock Exchange, created the first handheld computers used for trading.
The proprietary technology can track positions and continually re-price options, giving Timber Hill an edge over its peers. Over the past three decades, the firm has continued to innovate and expand. Timber Hill today is the U.S. firm that is a specialist in the largest number of options series. It also is a member of all major exchanges around the world.

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