Chicago Mercantile Ex-change (CME) moved to bolster its case for the acquisition of Chicago Board of Trade (CBoT) at the annual Futures Industry Association (FIA) Conference in Boca Raton, Florida, only a day before IntercontinentalExch-ange made its surprise approach for CBoT.
The exchange hosted a panel of end users and market experts who all supported the combination of the two Chicago exchanges. The move is part of an ongoing battle between the exchange and industry opponents of the deal, many of which come from the large institutions that want greater clearing choice.
CME's panel consisted of three proprietary trading firm executives as well as a university professor and official from a trade association. All of the panelists strongly supported the CME-CBoT merger for a variety of reasons, but chiefly that a combined exchange would provide deeper and more liquid markets.
"The most important aspect of this merger is that...