CHICAGO, Sept. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The CME Group
Center for Innovation (CFI) today announced Robert C. Merton, School of Management
Distinguished Professor of Finance at the MIT
Sloan School of Management and Myron
S. Scholes, chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors of
Stamos Partners, are the 2011 CME Group Fred Arditti Innovation
Award recipients. Both recipients are recognized for their
significant contributions to the financial markets, including the
discovery and development of the Black-Scholes options pricing
model, used to determine the value of options derivatives. The
award will be presented at the fourth annual Global Financial
Leadership Conference in Naples,
Fla., Monday, October 24.
"The Fred Arditti Award honors individuals whose innovative
ideas created significant change to the markets," said Leo Melamed, CME Group Chairman Emeritus and
Competitive Markets Advisory Council (CMAC) Vice Chairman. "The
nexus between the Black-Scholes model and this Award needs no
explanation. Their options model forever changed the
nature of markets and provided the necessary foundation for the
measurement of risk. The CME Group options markets were built
on that infrastructure."
"The Black-Scholes pricing model is still widely used to
minimize risk in the financial markets," said Scholes, who first
articulated the model's formula along with economist Fischer Black.
"It is thrilling to witness the impact it has had in this industry,
and we are honored to receive this recognition for it."
"Amid uncertainty in the financial markets, we are pleased the
Black-Scholes pricing model still plays an important role in
determining pricing and managing risk," said Merton, who worked
with Scholes and Black to further mathematically prove the model.
"It is quite an honor to be recognized by CME Group for this
achievement."
Chosen annually by the members of CMAC, the CME Group Fred
Arditti Innovation Award is named after the exchange's former Chief
Economist Fred Arditti, who was
instrumental in developing the index upon which CME's Eurodollar
futures contract, the world's most actively traded futures
contract, was founded. The award honors an individual or group
whose innovative ideas, products or services have created
significant change to markets, commerce or trade. The award strives
to celebrate innovation that through practical application has had
a positive impact on the economic well-being of individuals,
industry or a nation. Past recipients of the award are Economics
Nobel Prize winner William F. Sharpe
(2005), Leo Melamed, founder of
financial futures and CME Group Chairman Emeritus (2006),
Eugene Fama, distinguished Service
Professor of Finance at the University of
Chicago Graduate School of Business (2007), Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and
Mayor of the City of New York
(2008), Harry Markowitz, Nobel-prize
winning economist (2009) and Dr. David
Ferrucci, IBM Senior Manager (2010).
About the Center for Innovation
CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives
exchange, established the CME Group Center for Innovation in 2003,
to identify, foster and showcase examples of significant innovation
and creative thinking pertaining to markets, commerce and financial
services in the public and private sectors. Each of CFI's programs
aims to explore and communicate the principals behind innovation
and more importantly, showcase their application to a broad and
diverse audience.
Oversight of CFI is provided by the CMAC, which includes: CMAC
Chairman, John P. Gould;
Gary S. Becker, Nobel Prize-Winning
Economist, Professor of Economics and Sociology, University of Chicago; David D. Hale, International Economist and
Founder, Hale Advisors, LLC;
Robert C. Merton, Nobel
Prize-Winning Economist, John and Natty McArthur University
Professor, Harvard Business School;
Michael H. Moskow, Vice Chairman and
Senior Fellow for the Global Economy and former President, Federal
Reserve Bank of Chicago, the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs; Robert
J. Shiller, Stanley B. Resor,
Professor of Economics, Yale University
Chief Economist, Macro Securities Research, LLC.
Additionally, the following CME Group senior officials serve as
members of CMAC: Leo Melamed, CME
Group Chairman Emeritus, CMAC Vice Chairman; Terry Duffy, CME Group Executive Chairman;
Craig Donohue, CME Group CEO;
Phupinder Gill, CME Group President;
Charles Carey, CME Group Vice
Chairman; Jack Sandner, Retired
Chairman.
For more information on the CME Group Center for Innovation,
please visit http://www.cmegroup.com/cfi.
As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace,
CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) is where the world comes to manage
risk. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global
benchmark products across all major asset classes, including
futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes,
foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, weather
and real estate. CME Group brings buyers and sellers
together through its CME Globex® electronic trading
platform and its trading facilities in New York and Chicago. CME Group also
operates CME Clearing, one of the world's leading central
counterparty clearing providers, which offers clearing and
settlement services for exchange-traded contracts, as well as for
over-the-counter derivatives transactions through CME
ClearPort®. These products and services ensure that
businesses everywhere can substantially mitigate counterparty
credit risk in both listed and over-the-counter derivatives
markets.
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Globex and Chicago Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of Chicago
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CME) and its products can be found at www.cmegroup.com.
CME-G
SOURCE CME Group