Page 12 - Futures Money Machine-Study Session #2

Futures Exchanges

The GLOBEX is Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s global electronic trading system. The system offers

computerized order entry and trade matching on a wide range of futures and options products, virtually 24
hours a day, to people around the world.

The innovative GLOBEX system first became operational in 1992. Originally, GLOBEX was created to meet
demand from traders – both locally and around the world – for “overnight” access to the currency futures

markets during the hours the Chicago market was closed. In an increasingly global economy, international

businesses needed to manage currency risk unhindered by the limitations of local time zones. Fortunately, this

need was also developing concurrently with a technological revolution that would make 24-hour access to the
futures markets a goal that was possible to achieve.

Since there was also great demand for electronic and after-hours access to other kinds of futures products,
many new contracts were made available for trading on the GLOBEX system throughout the ’90s. Now,

GLOBEX offers around-the-clock access to a variety of interest rate and index futures as well as currency

futures. The first electronically traded contracts on agricultural commodities (E-mini lean hogs and E-mini live
cattle) will soon join this list.