In late December, as many of us were gearing up for the holidays, the Chicago Board of Trade CBOT and the Singapore Exchange SGX announced their agreement to form a fifty-fifty joint venture company called the Joint Asian Derivatives Pte. Ltd.
Its purpose is to establish a commodities derivatives market, to be known as the Joint Asian Derivatives Exchange JADE, which is projected to begin operations by the end of the third quarter of 2006. In the initial phase, the new exchange will be operated by Singapore Exchange Derivatives Trading Ltd.
The joint venture will develop commodity contracts to be traded on JADE. All trades...