U.S. Futures Exchange - USFE

The USFE or U.S. Futures Exchange terminated operation in 2008, on December 28, since a buyer for the exchange could not be found, therefore closing exchange operations. It was located at 141 West Jackson Blvd, suite 146 D, Chicago Illinois. It had a short duration; was founded in 2004, reopened in 2007, and finally closed in 2008. This was a type of electronic exchange that was based in Chicago. It was fully electronic and it used the Eurex Network to provide worldwide connectivity. The first CEO was Satish Nandapurkar. The second Chief Executive Officer was John Goldsberry. Its last chief executive officer was John Spiegel. It was a Delaware limited liability company and was recognized in the UK as an investment exchanged, overseas. It offered electronic derivatives. It offered products types institutional and retail that other exchanges did not offer. It developed products for the retail market, developed in partnership with third parties. Products included mini size foreign equity index and currency products. The structure was a low cost based turnkey platform. The Clearing Corporation provided the clearing and Deutsche Borse systems operated the platform, and it was regulated by the National Futures Association. The shareholders were MF Global, Eurex, and Man Group. MS Global was the largest shareholder, with 49.9 percent, MF Global had 17 percent and Eurex had 27 percent, other investors had 6.1 percent.

Security Futures is the term used to name futures on individual stocks that buyers and sellers trade putting a good faith deposit or margin. A single stock future refers to future contracts on the individual stock. Future contracts on exchange trade funds are called ETF's. The products represented included futures on renewable energy, equity indexes, and foreign exchange. A futures exchange is a financial product or exchange where individual investors can trade future contracts. These contracts are standardized to purchase a commodity in quantity or a financial instrument in price. The delivery of the product is set at a future date - hence the term futures. This is called a derivative because the future value is derived from another asset.

There is not much said on the U.S. Futures Exchange reason for closing, except that there was no buyer for it. However, it seems that in the short time that it was in operation it went through three Chief Financial Officers, that is three in four years of operation, since the foundation on 2004 until it closed on 2008. This fully electronic exchange would have not survived the recent financial meltdown, most likely. It is not sure if the USFE will reopen in the future, despite technology and renewable energy being the way of the future.

Most websites are closed, and the ones that show slight information, are dated, showing the exchange open, however their official website usfe.com shows a message that the USFE is currently closed. The company used to have a MySpace page, which does not seem to be in operation, showing a blank page. The USFE future seems to have gone in smoke and only a virtual ghost of the fully electronic exchange Chicago, Illinois company remains at this time.