CME
 

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings, Inc. operates as a futures exchange in the United States for the trading of futures and options on futures. The company offers trade futures contracts and options on futures contracts on interest rates, equities, foreign exchange, commodities, and alternative investments. Its products include CME Eurodollar contracts and contracts based on the U.S. stock indexes. The company also offers contracts for the principal foreign currencies and for various commodity products, including cattle, hogs, and dairy. Its products provide a means for hedging, speculation, and asset allocation relating to the risks associated with interest rate sensitive instruments, equity ownership, changes in the value of foreign currency, and changes in the prices of commodities. The company also offers E-mini Russell 2000 futures contracts; cash-settled butter futures; ethanol futures; and CME Economic Derivatives that are based on economic data, which trades in its auction markets. In addition, it sells market data, which includes information about bids, offers, and trade size to resellers of its data, as well as banks, broker-dealers, pension funds, investment companies, mutual funds, insurance companies, other financial services companies, and individual investors. Further, the company owns and operates clearing house that clears, settles, and guarantees the performance of various transactions matched through its execution facilities; as well as provides various services, including transaction processing and position management, cross-margining and mutual offset services, market protection, and risk management; settlement, collateral, and delivery services; and investment services. Its customers include professional traders, financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, corporations, manufacturers, producers, supranational entities, and governments.
 

 

CBOT
 

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE), through its subsidiaries, operates global marketplaces for the trading of energy commodity futures and over-the-counter (OTC) contracts on its Internet-based Interchange trading platform. These contracts principally include oil, natural gas, and power. The company’s Futures segment consists of trade execution in futures contracts and options on futures contracts. It offers futures trading both on electronic platform and on open-outcry trading floor. ICE’s OTC segment includes trade execution in OTC energy contracts conducted on electronic platform; and the provision of trading-related services, including OTC electronic trade confirmation, access to clearing services, and OTC risk management functionality. The company also offers a variety of market data services for both the futures and OTC markets. ICE was founded in 2000 by Jeffrey C. Sprecher and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.