CBT - Chicago Board of Trade (1848) - world's largest futures exchange; adding electronic remote access, and talking a deal with EUREX.

CME - Chicago Mercantile Exchange (1899) - 2nd largest US derivatives market; 3rd largest in the world; talking a deal with MATIF, and possible adoption of GLOBEX . It has plans to become a "for profit" exchange.

CANTER Exchange - small and growing - New York Board of Trade and Cantor Fizt LP launched a new exchange, with the latest electronic access, in Sept. 1998.

LIFFE - London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (Europe's second largest) owns Euro-Libor. LIFFE's Euribor (money market reference rate, calculated in Brussels, used by both MATIF & EUREX. London offers both Euribor & Euro-Libor (Euribor, the benchmark product for interest rates in the 11 country euro-zone). Euribor & Euro-Libor are used as reference for lending interbank and for trading the over-the-counter derivatives market.

MATIF - Marche a Terme International de France. The French Exchange is the derivatives arm of SBF-Paris Bourse.

EUREX - Swiss-German Exchange is the result of a merger of Soffex and Deutsche Terminborse. This group plans to be a "for profit" exchange, and exceeds the LIFFE today.

FINEX - Dublin-based financial arm of the NY Cotton Exchange.

Sidney Futures Exchange - this exchange and the Australian Stock Exchange merged, as a "for profit" exchange. Sidney surpassed Tokyo for trade volume in the Pacific. This group is talking merger with EUREX.

Other less important and unruly exchanges with an international flavor have sprung up around the globe. Today, the sun never sets on the financial centers which can process currency exchanges and sell the derivatives which limit gains and losses in the volatile currency exchanges. The following is a very incomplete list.

The Budapest Commodities Exchange has a financial futures market. The eastern block undoubtedly has several more, although none were mentioned in the databases, newspapers, or myriad of deals which I searched out.

China has taken steps recently to control and merge it's many unruly futures exchanges into Shanghai's Exchange. Singapore International Monetary Exchange thrives. Hong Kong is a thriving exchange city.

NASD - National Association of Securities Dealers. This organization has no futures trading yet but has a very organized clearing house for settlement. The clearinghouses (backroom operations as they are called) are attractive acquisitions and partners because of the ready made efficiency for settlement.