Sterling Commodities Corporation

Exchanges

A list of the exchanges on which Sterling Commodities provides its services.

The New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. is the world's largest physical commodity futures exchange and the preeminent trading forum for energy and precious metals.

The Exchange has stood for market integrity and price transparency throughout its 132-year history. Transactions executed on the Exchange avoid the risk of counterparty default because the Exchange clearinghouse acts as the counterparty to every trade. Trading is conducted through two divisions, the NYMEX Division, home to the energy, platinum, and palladium markets; and the COMEX Division, on which all other metals trade.

The Exchange pioneered the development of energy futures and options contracts 26 years ago as a means of bringing price transparency and risk management to this vital market.

NYBOT

The New York Board of Trade® (NYBOT®) provides the world’s premiere futures and options markets for several internationally traded agricultural commodities: cocoa, coffee, cotton, frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ) and sugar. For well over a century, representatives of these primary commodity industries have joined traders and investors in the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) markets to engage in price discovery, price risk transfer and price dissemination for these products. New York’s original futures exchange also provides futures and options markets for currency cross rates, as well as for the Russell Equity Indexes, NYSE Commodity Index®, Reuters Jefferies CRB Index, and the US Dollar Index® (USDX®), along with new markets for Ethanol and Pulp.

CME

The Chicago Butter and Egg Board was founded in 1898 and evolved into the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (now CME) in 1919. Initially, its members traded futures contracts on agricultural commodities via open outcry. This system of trading — which is still in use today — essentially involves hundreds of auctions going on at the same time.

In open outcry trading, traders stand in a trading pit and call out prices and quantities that indicate their willingness to buy or sell. They use hand signals to convey the same information since it can be difficult to hear if everyone is shouting at once. Open outcry is an efficient means of "price discovery," allowing buyers and sellers to arrive at the best prices given the supply and demand for a given futures or options on futures contract. Its speed and efficiency have been further enhanced by the introduction of a variety of trading floor technologies.

The CME open outcry platform and trading floor systems are linked to the CME® Globex® electronic trading platform, which allows market participants to buy and sell whether they're sitting at trading booths on our Chicago trading floors, working at offices or homes thousands of miles away, or making trades during and after regular trading hours. At CME, some traders prefer face-to-face interaction on the CME trading floors while an increasing number prefer to trade electronically.

CBOT

The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT® ), established in 1848, is a leading futures and futures-options exchange. More than 3,600 CBOT member/stockholders trade 50 different futures and options products at the CBOT by open auction and electronically. Volume at the Exchange in 2005 surpassed 674 million contracts, the highest yearly total recorded in its history.

In its early history, the CBOT traded only agricultural commodities such as corn, wheat, oats and soybeans. Futures contracts at the Exchange evolved over the years to include non-storable agricultural commodities and non-agricultural products. In October 2005, the CBOT marked the 30th anniversary of the the Exchange's first financial futures contract, based on Government National Mortgage Association mortgage-backed certificates. Since that introduction, futures trading has been initiated in many financial instruments, including U.S. Treasury bonds and notes, 30-Day Federal Funds, stock indexes, and swaps, to name but a few. Another market innovation, options on futures, was introduced in 1982. The CBOT added a new category to its diverse product mix in 2001 with the launch of 100 percent electronic Gold and Silver futures contracts. CBOT South American Soybean futures and Ethanol futures, the Exchange’s newest products, were introduced in 2005 in response to shifting trends in the global agricultural economy.

ICE

IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) is the world’s leading electronic marketplace for energy trading and price discovery. ICE’s transparent and efficient market structure, coupled with its secure, electronic trading platform, allows ICE to provide market participants with direct access to energy futures and thousands of OTC commodity products for oil and refined products, natural gas, power and emissions.

In addition to its globally distributed liquid electronic markets, ICE offers a range of risk management tools designed to increase trading efficiency. ICE Data provides energy market data based on OTC and futures markets through real-time access and an array of indices, custom data services and mark to market products. Electronic trade confirmations through ICE eConfirm ensure that trades are confirmed accurately and in a matter of seconds, whether executed in ICE’s OTC markets or off-exchange. The combination of speed, accessibility, service, and information makes ICE the complete energy marketplace for thousands of market participants across the globe, around the clock.