In its second quarterly results announcement since its IPO late last year, Chicago Board of Trade (CBoT) has reported buoyant revenues and profits, fully recovering from the losses late in 2004 caused by the fee cuts introduced during the competitive battle with Eurex. However, the exchange declined to comment directly on specific plans for its growing cash reserves.
The headline figures were a 2005 fourth quarter revenue increase of 33% on the same figure from 2004, from $65.1m to $86.4m. This enabled CBoT to turn around a $2.7m loss in the final three months of 2004 into a $17.7m profit in the last quarter.
Analysts were particularly impressed with the exchange's success in increasing its revenue per contract, which rose by 34% year-on-year from 42 cents to...