Results for New York Mercantile Exchange
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Investment Dictionary:

New York Mercantile Exchange - NYMEX

The world's largest physical commodity futures exchange. Trading is conducted through two divisions: the NYMEX Division, which is home to the energy, platinum and palladium markets, and the COMEX Division, where metals like gold, silver and copper and the FTSE 100 index options are traded. The NYMEX uses an outcry trading system during the day and an electronic trading system after hours.

Investopedia Says:
In 1872, a group of dairy merchants founded "The Butter and Cheese Exchange of New York", and in 1994, the NYMEX merged with the COMEX (commodity exchange). Futures and options on energy and precious metals have become great tools when companies try to manage risk by hedging their positions. The ease with which these instruments are traded is vital to hedging activities and gauging future prices, making the NYMEX a vital part of the trading and hedging worlds.

You'll hear the NYMEX referred to as "The Merc".

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Financial & Investment Dictionary: New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex)

The New York Mercantile Exchange is the largest physical commodity exchange in the world, offering futures and options trading in energy and metals contracts and clearing services for off-exchange energy transactions. Through a combination of open outcry floor trading and the NYMEX ACCESS and NYMEX ClearPort electronic trading platforms, a wide range of crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas, coal, electricity, gold, silver, copper, aluminum, and platinum group metals markets are available virtually 24 hours a day. www.nymex.com. See also Securities and Commodities Exchanges.

 
Wikipedia: New York Mercantile Exchange
New York Mercantile Exchange
Type NYSE listed public company
Founded 1882
Headquarters New York, US
Website www.nymex.com

The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is the world's largest physical commodity futures exchange, located in New York City. Its two principal divisions are the New York Mercantile Exchange and the New York Commodities Exchange (COMEX) which were once independent companies but are now merged. The New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. is now traded publicly, as its parent company, NYMEX Holdings, Inc. became listed on the New York Stock Exchange on November 17, 2006, under the ticker symbol NMX.

The New York Mercantile Exchange handles billions of dollars worth of energy products, metals, and other commodities being bought and sold on the trading floor and the overnight electronic trading computer systems. The prices quoted for transactions on the exchange are the basis for prices that people pay for throughout the world.

The floor of the NYMEX is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an independent agency of the United States government. Each individual company that trades on the exchange must send their own independent brokers. Therefore, a few employees on the floor of the exchange represent a big corporation and the exchange employees only record the transactions and have nothing to do with the actual trade. The NYMEX is one of the few exchanges in the world to maintain the open outcry system, where traders employ shouting and complex hand gestures on the physical trading floor.

On February 26, 2003, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) signed a lease agreement with the NYMEX to move into its World Financial Center headquarters and trading facility after the NYBOT's original headquarters and trading floor was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. [1]

After the terrorist attacks, the NYMEX built a $12 million trading floor backup facility outside of New York City with 700 trader's boothes, 2,000 telephones, and a backup computer system. This backup is in case of another terrorist attack on Lower Manhattan or a natural disaster. [2]

NYMEX building in World Financial Center
Enlarge
NYMEX building in World Financial Center

History of the exchange

Commodity exchanges began in the middle of the 19th century, when businessmen began organizing market forums to make buying and selling of commodities easier. These marketplaces provided a place for buyers and sellers to set the quality, standards, and establish rules of business. By the late 1800s about 1,600 marketplaces had sprung up at ports and railroad stations. In 1872, a group of Manhattan dairy merchants got together and created the Butter and Cheese Exchange of New York. Soon, egg trade became part of the business conducted on the exchange and the name was modified to the Butter, Cheese, and Egg Exchange. In 1882, the name finally changed to the New York Mercantile Exchange when opening trade to dried fruits, canned goods, and poultry. As centralized warehouses were built into principal market centers such as New York and Chicago in the early 20th century, exchanges in smaller cities began to disappear giving more business to the exchanges such as the NYMEX in bigger cities. In 1933, the COMEX was established through the merger of four smaller exchanges; the National Metal Exchange, the Rubber Exchange of New York, the National Raw Silk Exchange, and the New York Hide Exchange. On August 3, 1994, the NYMEX and COMEX finally merged under the NYMEX. Now, the NYMEX operates in a state of the art trading facility and office building with two trading floors in the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan.

Location

The official address of the NYMEX headquarters and trading facility is One North End Avenue, New York, NY 10282-1101. The company has additional offices in Houston, Washington D.C., London, and Hong Kong.

Commodities traded on the exchange

Holidays and Special Dates

Date Day Holiday Open Outcry Electronic Clearport
1 January 2007 Monday New Years Day Closed Closed until 1800h Closed until 1800h
15 January 2007 Monday Martin Luther King Day Closed Open Open
19 February 2007 Monday President's Day Closed Open Open
6 April 2007 Friday Good Friday Closed Closed Closed
28 May 2007 Monday Memorial Day Closed Open Open
4 July 2007 Wednesday Independence Day Closed Open Open
3 September 2007 Monday Labor Day Closed Open Open
22 November 2007 Thursday Thanksgiving Closed Open Open
25 December 2007 Tuesday Christmas Holiday Closed Closed until 1800h Closed until 1800h

See also

External links

Coordinates: 40°42′52″N, 74°1′1″W


 
 

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Investment Dictionary. Copyright ©2000, Investopedia.com - Owned and Operated by Investopedia Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Financial & Investment Dictionary. Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms. Copyright © 2006 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "New York Mercantile Exchange" Read more

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