CME Announces Good Friday Holiday Trading Hours

CHICAGO, March 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CME today announced the following trading schedule for the Good Friday holiday (all times are Central time):

     Thursday, March 24  Commodity futures, foreign exchange and interest rate
                         products traded on Exchange trading floors close at
                         12:00 noon. (Commodity options close at 12:02 p.m.).
                         Equity index and GSCI products close at their
                         regularly scheduled times (3:15 p.m. for equity index
                         products and 1:40 p.m. for GSCI products).

                         Products traded on CME(R) Globex(R) during Regular
                         Trading Hours (RTH) close as follows: commodities and
                         fertilizer close at 12:00 noon; foreign exchange and
                         interest rates close at 3:15 p.m.  Products closing
                         at their regular times are equity indexes, weather
                         and X-Funds (3:15 p.m.), TRAKRS(SM) (3:00 p.m.),
                         GSCI (1:40 p.m.) and CPI (2:00 p.m.).

     Friday, March 25    CME Globex and Exchange trading floors are closed in
                         observance of Good Friday.

     Sunday, March 27    CME Globex opens at its regular time of 5:30 p.m.
                         (for trade date of March 28).

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. ( http://www.cme.com ) is the largest futures exchange in the United States. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on CME Globex^® electronic trading platform and on its trading floor. CME offers futures and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moved about $1.5 billion per day in settlement payments in 2004 and managed $44.1 billion in collateral deposits as of Dec. 31, 2004, including $3.1 billion in deposits for non-CME products. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000^® Index.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME and Globex are registered trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Further information about CME and its products is available on the CME Web site at http://www.cme.com .

SOURCE Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.

CONTACT: Media, Anita S. Liskey, +1-312-466-4613, or Pamela Plehn, +1-312-930-3446, news@cme.com , or Investors, John Peschier, +1-312-930-8491, all of CME "Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Chicago Mercantile Exchange's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report or Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year.