OneChicago, the all-electronic security futures exchange, and Interactive Brokers Group, an electronic broker dealer, announced Thursday a significant equity investment in the Exchange that they hope will drive growth in OneChicago’s products.
In the transaction, Interactive Brokers joins Chicago Board Options Exchange Incorporated, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and the Chicago Board of Trade as a major investor in OneChicago, a news release said. Interactive Brokers will combine its strengths, including broad access to customers, market making expertise and advanced trading technology with those of CBOE, CME and CBOT to accelerate the market’s growing interest in security futures.
“We are pleased to be partnering with one of the most highly regarded, successful and innovative firms in the financial industry,” said OneChicago President Marty Doyle. “This investment by Interactive Brokers reflects positively on our recent success and will enable us to build on our momentum.”
“It also represents our mutual confidence in the growth potential of security futures,” he continued. “OneChicago’s volume grew 188 percent last year. Volume through February is up more than 400 percent over the same period in 2005, and open interest reached a record $1.8 million contracts last month.”
Thomas Peterffy, chairman of Interactive Brokers, said, “OneChicago has a tremendous growth opportunity in the industry. Interactive Brokers’ professional customers continue to have increased sensitivity to the cost of financing their positions, and they are realizing that stock futures are the low cost alternative to margin loans or short rebates. Interactive Brokers has the lowest margin rates in the industry, but by using stock futures on OneChicago, our customers can do even better. To that end, we are ready to work with our Chicago exchange partners to broaden the list of products, order types and facilities offered by OneChicago.”