The Zero-Sum Game: The Rise of the World’s Largest Derivatives Exchange and its Influence on the Global Economy offers a behind-the-scenes look at how CME Group came seemingly out of nowhere to give Wall Street’s power players a run for their money literally. The merger between the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) formed CME Group in mid-2007 and permanently altered the landscape of the financial services industry. CME Group develops and hosts trading of futures contracts that influence everything from the interest rate on your credit card to the cost of a cheeseburger at McDonalds to the price you pay for gas. $5 trillion is a lot of money. It’s six times the value of all of the U.S. dollars in circulation. It’s greater than the economies of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and India combined. It’s also the value of derivatives contracts handled by CME Group, the world’s largest derivatives exchange, every day. Against the backdrop of the tumultuous (and at many times, comical) CME/CBOT merger, The Zero-Sum Game explains just how extensively futures trading affects the daily lives of consumers worldwide, whether they are directly invested in the markets or not. The book also introduces the enormous personalities responsible for bringing the derivatives industry into the spotlight, and will show how these same pioneers are still struggling to transform their exchanges from good ol’ boy networks to publicly-run companies. Told by Erika Olson, an insider to the merger, The Zero-Sum Game gives you insight into one of the newest and most politically-connected power players in their industry, while making the inner workings of futures exchanges accessible.
