The International Monetary Market (IMM), a spin-off from the old Chicago Mercantile Exchange and largely the creation of Leo Melamed

Leo Melamed

Leo Melamed is a former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange , current board member of CME Group and chairman of the CME Group Foundation. He is a longtime executive in the field of global derivatives....

, is today one of three divisions of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange

Chicago Mercantile Exchange

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is an American financial and commodity derivative exchange based in Chicago. The CME was founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board. Originally, the exchange was a non-profit organization...

 (CME), the largest futures exchange

Futures exchange

A futures exchange or futures market is a central financial exchange where people can trade standardized futures contracts; that is, a contract to buy specific quantities of a commodity or financial instrument at a specified price with delivery set at a specified time in the future. These types of...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and the second largest in the world after Eurex

Eurex

Eurex is one of the world's leading derivatives exchanges, providing European benchmark derivatives featuring open and low-cost electronic access globally...

, for the trading of futures contract

Futures contract

In finance, a futures contract is a standardized contract between two parties to exchange a specified asset of standardized quantity and quality for a price agreed today with delivery occurring at a specified future date, the delivery date. The contracts are traded on a futures exchange...

s and option

Option (finance)

In finance, an option is a derivative financial instrument that specifies a contract between two parties for a future transaction on an asset at a reference price. The buyer of the option gains the right, but not the obligation, to engage in that transaction, while the seller incurs the...

s on futures. The IMM was started on May 16, 1972. Two of the more prevalent contracts traded are currency future

Currency future

A currency future, also FX future or foreign exchange future, is a futures contract to exchange one currency for another at a specified date in the future at a price that is fixed on the purchase date; see Foreign exchange derivative. Typically, one of the currencies is the US dollar...

s and interest rate future

Interest rate future

An interest rate futures is a financial derivative with an interest-bearing instrument as the underlying asset.Examples include Treasury-bill futures, Treasury-bond futures and Eurodollar futures....

s, specifically, 3-month Eurodollar

Eurodollar

Eurodollars are time deposits denominated in U.S. dollars at banks outside the United States, and thus are not under the jurisdiction of the Federal Reserve. Consequently, such deposits are subject to much less regulation than similar deposits within the U.S., allowing for higher margins. The term...

 time deposits and 90-day U.S. Treasury bills. The other two CME divisions includes the Index and Option Market (IOM) and Growth and Emerging Markets (GEM). All products fall under one of these three divisions.