CME Group reports record volume, rapid growth in 2007

CME Group Inc. today reported record volume and growth from its Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade in 2007 with nearly 2.8 billion contracts traded and average daily volume up 28 percent, the highest in five years.

Based on combined results from the two exchanges, it was the seventh straight year that volume growth exceeded 20 percent, CME said.

Electronic trading continued to account for an increasing share of the business, growing to 81 percent of all volume in the just-completed fourth quarter from 76 percent in the first quarter.

The company was formed last year when Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings acquired the Chicago Board of Trade's parent firm, CBOT Holdings Inc., for $11.9 billion.

Chicago-based CME faces a new challenge in 2008 from a group of banks and trading firms that plan to launch their own futures exchange to try to garner cheaper commissions.

Twelve financial institutions, including Merrill Lynch & Co., Citigroup Inc., and Bank of America Corp., unveiled a plan for an electronic trading exchange Dec. 21. Initially, the exchange will host trading of futures contracts linked to U.S. Treasury bonds and then branch into new products later this year.

This is not the first time the Merc's parent company has faced an incursion into its Treasury futures trading business. ESpeed's Cantor Exchange in 1999, BrokerTec in 2001, and Eurex U.S. in 2004 all tried to loosen its stranglehold on the product but failed.

Shares of CME fell $8.89, or 1.3 percent, to $677.11 in morning trading.