CME Group Inc. (CME) said it will partner with Brazilian exchange BM&F Bovespa S/A (BVMF3.BR) in a plan that will see each exchange company offer some of the other's most popular futures, including contracts tied to the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index.

Under the deal, Bovespa will license the main indicator of the Brazilian stock market's average performance for trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, offering the equities benchmark through dollar-denominated Ibovespa futures. Bovespa, meanwhile, will launch dollar-denominated S&P 500 Index futures to be settled in the Brazilian real.

The Brazilian exchange also will license settlement prices for CME Group's mini-sized soybean futures and New York Mercantile Exchange Light Sweet Crude Oil futures, also known as the West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, contract.

Cross-listing one another's benchmark contracts deepens the existing tie-up between BM&F Bovespa and CME, which includes an equity swap and collaboration on a new technology platform that will power the Brazilian markets.

It also represents the second major push by the exchange partners to drum up more trading among their collective customer base. CME and BM&F Bovespa have an existing electronic order-routing arrangement that has generated some volumes in Brazil but less in Chicago.

Bovespa expects to launch the mini-sized soybean futures in the second quarter, while the WTI futures are slated for launch in the third quarter.

Each exchange expects to launch its respective equity index futures in the second half.

The new agreement also provides room for the companies to license more products in the future.

-By Drew FitzGerald and Jacob Bunge, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2909; Andrew.FitzGerald@dowjones.com

CME (NASDAQ:CME)
Historical Stock Chart
From May 2024 to Jun 2024 Click Here for more CME Charts.
CME (NASDAQ:CME)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2023 to Jun 2024 Click Here for more CME Charts.