CME to expand its S&P portfolio

After losing its licensing agreement with Russell Investment Group to the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has announced it will expand its Standard & Poor's equity index futures portfolio with an index for small-cap firms.

In addition, CME and S&P announced their plan to develop other new income and fixed-income products for institutional asset-management traders. The exchange declined to give any further details on either of these products, but stated they were not a reaction to the recent loss to ICE of the exchange's right to offer products based on equity indexes produced by the Russell Investment Group. Instead, the new S&P products were “a response to a need in the market-place,” the exchange said.

The exchange also remains confident of the superiority of its bid for the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) over that of ICE. “Stock is up, reflecting investor confidence; we have a defensive merger agreement in place, ICE does not; the CBOT has rejected the ICE bid twice and I think there’s a lot of momentum in our favour,” the exchange stated. The next shareholder vote on the merger is scheduled for July 7.