The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the largest US derivatives exchange, has outperformed all ten listed bourses within the Dow Jones Global Exchanges index over the past two years. Its shares have climbed more than five-fold since listing in December 2002.

The US exchange has seen a huge growth in trading volumes in the last two years despite competition from Eurex US, owned by Deutsche Börse, and from Euronext.Liffe which launched a rival Eurodollar contract in February this year.