CME Group Announces Winners of the 12th Annual Trading Competition

2015 Global Participation Breaks Record

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Mar 11, 2015, 11:00 ET

CHICAGO, March 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced the winners of its 12^th annual CME Group Trading Challenge. The four-week electronic trading competition is open exclusively to teams of currently enrolled graduate and undergraduate students around the world. The students compete on a real-time professional trading platform, provided by CQG, while learning about market events by accessing live Dow Jones newsfeeds and The Hightower Report. The competition is designed to offer students an educational and professional trading experience by giving them the chance to trade a variety of CME Group products across all major asset classes. This year brought record level participation with more than 500 teams made up of 2,000 students participating from 37 countries around the world.

"This year's record participation indicates that the next generation is taking an interest in our industry," said Terry Duffy, CME Group Executive Chairman and President. "Learning how to trade through hands-on techniques is a great way for bright young minds to get educated in risk management. CME Group wants to show students that finance is an exciting place where innovative people can make a real impact on the world."

"CQG is proud to be a partner in the CME Group Trading Challenge," said Rod Giffen, President of CQG. "We are committed to providing a superior real-time trading experience for students with diverse interests from business and finance to agriculture and economics. We would like to congratulate all the participants for making this year's Trading Challenge the best ever."

The following winning teams will receive a cash prize and are invited to attend a one-day market education conference at CME Group on April 10:

University – Team Name	Final Simulated Account Balance
Ozyegin University– OzU Invest	$534,672.50
University of Alabama at Birmingham – UAB Blazers	$490,287.50
Boston University – Big Hero Five	$474,843.13
Carnegie Mellon University – Carnegie Mellon	$458.655.00

CME Group has made risk-management education a top priority. In addition to offering interactive events like the Trading Challenge, CME Group provides education about the global economy and markets with a variety of tools. Recently, the company launched Futures Institute, an innovative new online platform for futures and options education, trading simulation and market research. The Futures Institute works with partners across the industry to distribute best-in-class education offering a blend of live instruction, interactive training modules, market research and training. In 2014, CME Group's risk-management endeavor was Futures Fundamentals, an innovative website that explains the role of futures markets in everyday life. The goal of the site is to make financial education an engaging experience for anyone, regardless of how well versed they are in the world of finance. Additionally, CME Group, in partnership with the National 4-H Council, offers a Commodity Carnival game and a new interactive app, Risk Ranch, which educates kids about managing risk in agriculture.

About CME Group
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, its trading facilities in New York and Chicago, and through its London-based CME Europe derivatives exchange. CME Group also operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers through CME Clearing and CME Clearing Europe, which offer clearing and settlement services across asset classes for exchange-traded contracts and over-the-counter derivatives transactions. These products and services ensure that businesses everywhere can substantially mitigate counterparty credit risk.

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. KCBOT, KCBT and Kansas City Board of Trade are trademarks of The Board of Trade of Kansas City, Missouri, 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.

About CQG, Inc.
CQG, Inc. (www.cqg.com) provides high-performance trade routing, global market data, and advanced technical analysis. CQG partners with more than one hundred Futures Commission Merchant environments and provides Direct Market Access to more than forty exchanges through its global network of co-located Hosted Exchange Gateways. CQG's server-side order management tools for spreading, market aggregation, and smart orders are unsurpassed for speed and ease-of-use. CQG's market data feed consolidates more than seventy-five sources, including exchanges worldwide for futures, options, fixed income, foreign exchange, and equities as well as data on debt securities, industry reports, and financial indices. CQG has received the Prop Traders' ISV of the Year award from FOW and the Best Technical Analysis Platform award from The Technical Analyst. CQG is headquartered in Denver, Colorado with sales and support offices worldwide.

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SOURCE CME Group