Mercantile

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) traded so many barbs last week in their dueling pursuit of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) that they could make markets in boasts, brickbats and business bromides.

Looking to take a second bite of the apple, Nymex Holdings Inc., the parent company of the New York Mercantile Exchange Inc., announced last week the pricing of its secondary offering of seven million shares of its common stock at $136.50 per share.

Looking to take a second bite of the apple, Nymex Holdings Inc., the parent company of the New York Mercantile Exchange Inc., late Wednesday announced the pricing of its secondary offering of seven million shares of its common stock at $136.50 per share.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) have traded so many barbs in their dueling pursuit of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) that they could make markets in boasts, brickbats and business bromides.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (CME) Tuesday said it will meet with shareholders of CBOT Holdings Inc. and members of the Chicago Board of Trade to reiterate the advantages of its proposed merger with CBOT and provide its views on the unsolicited proposal made by IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) to CBOT shareholders last week (see Daily GPI, March 16).

Tapping into the renewable energy business, Nymex Holdings subsidiary the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) signed an agreement Tuesday with Ardour Global Indexes LLC, a developer of benchmark indexes for the global alternative energy industry, to introduce alternative energy index futures and options contracts.

Following the success of its popular initial public offering in November, it appears that Nymex Holdings, which operates the 135-year-old New York Mercantile Exchange, is going after a second bite of the apple. On Friday the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission an automatic shelf registration statement for a potential secondary offering of shares of common stock.

The New York Mercantile Exchange Inc. (Nymex) announced that beginning on Monday it will expand block trading and exchange of futures for swaps (EFS) to include its core energy futures contracts. Additionally, trading at settlement (TAS) will be expanded on the floor and electronically. Block trades will be available with a minimum quantity of 200 contracts for crude oil futures, and 100 contracts for natural gas, heating oil and gasoline futures. Block trades may be submitted on the trading floor or by fax to the Nymex facilitation desk, if registered for Nymex ClearPort. An additional fee of $1.50 per lot per side will apply. EFS will be available for crude oil and heating oil futures, as is currently available for natural gas and gasoline futures contracts. Nymex said submission will be expanded beyond the trading floor to include Nymex ClearPort. A fee of $2.50 per lot per side will apply. TAS will expand to include the third nearby trading month for all eligible energy contracts on the Nymex trading floor and on the CME Globex electronic trading platform.

In what appears to be a response to recent congressional calls for more market transparency and an inquiry into potential market manipulation, the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) said earlier this month that it will require all traders with positions above the standard expiration position limit of 1,000 gas contracts going into the final day of trading for an expiring contract to reveal their complete book of positions linked to the settlement price of the expiring contract.