By Ros Krasny
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Agricultural products could drive volume growth at the Chicago Board of Trade as the industry becomes more global, Bernard Dan, chief executive of CBOT Holdings, said on Wednesday.
"We're going to see the globalization of CBOT's agricultural product base," said Dan, speaking at the Reuters Exchanges and Trading Summit in New York.
The CBOT, the No. 2 U.S. futures exchange, will move to a hybrid trading model for its ag contracts in August, listing products such as corn and soybeans on its electronic platform during peak U.S. trading hours for the first time.
That change "positions us well for a trend that's been really emerging in the last couple of years -- hedge funds and broad managed futures funds wanting and seeking exposure to nonfinancial products," Dan said.
"There are a lot of algorithmic and black box traders that want exposure to non-financial products and will only trade in electronic marketplaces," he said.
So far in 2006, agriculture and metals contracts have expanded more than the dominant U.S. Treasury contracts on the CBOT.
Through April, financial contract volume was up 4.5 percent on the year with the agricultural sector up 16.2 percent and metals surging 709.5 percent from 2005.
Dan said the rapidly rising volume and open interest in gold futures had attracted waves of new participants, including those that have shifted over from New York's Comex exchange. Continued...
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