September An International Month For CME

September saw a series of international announcements from the CME Group, as the futures business increasingly goes global.

Early in the month, the exchange group announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Osaka Securities Exchange. Both parties indicated they hoped to leverage the fact that both the OSE and CME list futures on the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index.

A few weeks later, CME Group said it had signed an agreement with the Korea Exchange under which futures on the KOSPI 200, Korea's main local stock index, would be listed on the CME Globex platform. The index covers the 200 largest companies listed in South Korea by market capitalization.

Also in September, CME Group announced it would begin trading E-mini S&P 500 futures denominated in euros in late October on the CME Globex platform. The E-mini S&P 500 futures are one of the exchange's most popular products, with more than 2.2 million contracts trading each day.