More than 130 years after it joined exchanges in Chicago and Kansas City as a marketplace for U.S. farmers to hedge their crops, the Minneapolis Grain Exchange now has a lonely distinction: the last best chance for acquisitive rival Intercontinental Exchange to get a foothold in the market.In the wake of Wednesday's deal for Chicago rival CME Group to purchase the Kansas City Board of Trade, the so-called MGEX is now the last independently owned agricultural exchange in the United States, home to a niche spring wheat contract as well as more esoteric products including agricultural index contracts and apple juice futures.Although trading volume in MGEX wheat is only a third as much as Kansas City's wheat contract and equivalent to just 5 percent of the benchmark Chicago Board of Trade contract, it may prove to be a better fit for ICE.First, both exchanges are wholly committed to electronic trade: ICE has made a habit of shutting open-outcry trading floors after buying other exchanges in New York and London, while MGEX closed its open-outcry futures pit in 2008.
CME Group Inc. (CME Group) offers a range of global products across all asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, weather and real estate. Shares of CME traded higher by 0.7% or $0.4/share to $57.89. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $44.94 and as high as $60.92. On average, 2104180 shares of CME exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 1147157.
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