Nymex Beats on Trading Volume Spike
The red hot commodities market translated into record volume in the first quarter for
Nymex Holdings
(NMX)
, which beat analysts' expectations ahead of its planned acquisition.
The parent company of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the world's largest physical commodities exchange, reported a 27% rise in first-quarter net income to $71.2 million, or 75 cents a diluted share. Excluding $7.9 million in costs related to the company's planned merger with
CME Group
(CME) - Get Report
, the profit was 83 cents a diluted share, which beat the consensus expectation of 82 cents, according to Thomson Financial.
Total operating revenues for the 2008 first quarter were recorded at $208.9 million, also a 27% increase over the previous year's quarter.
Nymex initiated a new fee schedule on Jan. 1 and increased the market data fees on Feb. 1. This resulted in a 30% jump in clearing and transaction fees compared to last year's comparable quarter and a 13% leap for the data fees.
But it was the booming commodity market that pushed the average daily volume to a record 1.9 million contracts, a 24% improvement over the first quarter. Electronic trading volume increased 36%, but floor-traded energy futures dropped from 329,524 contracts per day to 236,894 contracts per day.
"We set electronic trading records, including COMEX gold and other metals, natural gas, heating oil, as well as overall electronic trading volume," President and CEO James Newsome said in a company statement.
The board declared a 10 cent-dividend.
CME Group, the operator of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, and Nymex announced the decision to merge in March. Since then, CME
also reported booming trading volumes
, despite missing expectations.
Upstart futures broker
Intercontinental Exchange
(ICE) - Get Report
will be reporting its earnings on Friday and
NYSE Euronext
(NYX)
is expected to release its numbers on May 6.
Shares of Nymex recently were up 1% to $93.52 in Thursday trading.
With the surging commodities market, other players are getting in on the action.
Nasdaq
offers commodity trading and online brokerages
optionsXpress
(OXPS)
and
E*Trade
(ETFC) - Get Report
offer futures trading.