CME Group Announces Open Interest in Power Contracts Reaches One Billion Megawatt Hours

CHICAGO, Oct. 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced it reached an open interest record for its power contracts.  At the close of trading Friday, open interest in CME Group power contracts reached 1,001,362,363 Megawatt hours (MWh), breaking the billion MWh threshold for the first time ever.  CME Group power contracts are listed with, and subject to, the rules of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).

"We're very pleased to see such strong interest in our power contracts," said Bryan Durkin, Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director, Products and Services at CME Group. "As the power industry continues to evolve and seeks new types of hedging products that match the unique needs of the electricity markets, we have worked with producers, marketers and other market participants to launch innovative new contracts that have offered our clients a new way to manage risk.  The growth of these new products has helped drive open interest across our entire energy complex to record levels."

Among the products contributing to this milestone are swaptions, which are strips of options contracts extending over several months, and calendar spread options.  CME Group also recently announced the launch of capacity swap futures, which are unique contracts that allow market participants to hedge for the maximum amount of power that could be used at any point of time, rather than for the consumption that is used over a period of time.  These contracts are particularly useful to the power markets for hedging risk.  Swaptions, calendar spread options and capacity swap futures are listed with, and subject to, the rules of the NYMEX.

Open interest in futures and options is the amount of positions open in existing contracts. It is a reflection of the long-term hedging interest that market participants have in a contract.

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 world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, which offers 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 and over-the-counter derivatives markets.

CME Group is a trademark of CME Group Inc. The Globe Logo, CME, Globex and Chicago Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and the Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are registered 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

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