ON-LINE TRADING LESSON
Trading futures and options involves risk and is not suitable for everyone. 

On-Line Trading Lessons

    Courtesy of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange

Lesson 14 -- Facts & Stats

BELIEVE IT OR NOT...
-- The CME’s trading floor fan systems move enough air to heat or cool 100 average size homes.
-- 200 IOM (Index and Option Market) memberships were offered when it was first established in 1982 at a price of $60,000 each. As of January 1, 1997, there were 1,287 memberships. The last seat sold for $274,500!
-- The main lights used for both the upper and lower trading floors are 400 watt metal halide bulbs. Each bulb produces the equivalent of twenty 100 watt home bulbs.
-- Butter was originally traded at the CME in units of "car lots". Each unit comprising 300 tubs of 64 pounds of butter. One carload was thus 19,200 pounds of butter.
-- The escalators which service both trading floors are some of the fastest in Chicago, moving at an average speed of 90-95 feet per minute.
-- Volume for the S&P 500 stock index futures on its first day of trading on April 21, 1992 was 3,963 contracts - a CME record for first-day volume at the time.
-- Did you know that the CME was the first exchange to trade a contract on a living animal - Live Cattle futures. The contract opened on November 30, 1964, at $24.00 with volume of 117 contracts.
-- Both CME trading floors are actually "raised" floors, that is, they are supported by a series of interlocked stilts. The space between the raised floors varies from 6 inches to several feet and is used for electric, phone, and data wiring. It also houses an advanced smoke detector system.
-- Approximately 39 cubic yards of waste paper are produced on the CME trading floor each day. This is the equivalent of 80 large trash bags.
-- Each trading booth can be set up with as many as 100 separate phone lines for both voice and/or data transmission.
-- It takes approximately 100 gallons of floor wax to treat each of the CME’s trading floors. Each floor is stripped and waxed four times a year.

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