| CME's trading floor fan systems move enough air to heat or cool 100 average size homes. |
| 200 IOM (Index and Option Market) memberships were offered when it was first established in 1982 at a price of $60,000 each. As of January 1, 2000, there were 1,287 memberships. Since then these seats have sold for as much as $345,000. |
| The main lights used for both the upper and lower trading floors are 400 watt metal halide bulbs. Each bulb produces the equivalent of twenty 100 watt home bulbs. |
| Butter was originally traded at CME in units of "car lots". With each unit comprising 300 tubs of 64 pounds of butter. One carload was thus 19,200 pounds of butter. |
| The escalators which service both trading floors are some of the fastest in Chicago, moving at an average speed of 90-95 feet per minute. |
| Volume for the S&P 500 stock index futures on its first day of trading on April 21, 1982 was 3,963 contracts - a CME record for first-day volume at the time. In 1999, average daily volume was over $100,000 and this contract was the second highest in volume at CME after Eurodollars. The third largest was the E-mini S&P - a smaller version of the regular contract designed for individual traders and traded online. |
| CME was the first exchange to trade a contract on a living animal - Live Cattle futures. The contract opened on November 30, 1964, at $24.00 with volume of 117 contracts. |
| Both CME trading floors are actually "raised" floors, that is, they are supported by a series of interlocked stilts. The space between the raised floors varies from 6 inches to several feet and is used for electric, phone, and data wiring. It also houses an advanced smoke detector system. |
| Approximately 39 cubic yards of waste paper are produced on the CME trading floor each day. This is the equivalent of 80 large trash bags. |
| Each trading booth can be set up with as many as 100 separate phone lines for both voice and/or data transmission. |
| It takes approximately 100 gallons of floor wax to treat each of CME's trading floors. Each floor is stripped and waxed four times a year. |
