When the organizers of FIA Expo decided to devote an entire session to featuring CME Group Chairman and CEO Terry Duffy and his 40 years in the industry, the journalist in me knew it would be a challenging event to report for readers. How could I write a piece that would do justice to the firehose of soundbites Terry was certain to deliver?
So, I decided to not even try.
Rather than formulate a standard ‘news’ article from what was a rollicking session with FIA President and CEO Walt Lukken, I present to you this collection of words of wisdom directly from Terry – unfiltered.
On The Idea of a Transaction Tax for Prediction Markets…
“Now, I did hear a comment from the lady from Kalshi yesterday, who made a comment about how we should have a transaction tax to fund this particular entity, which just goes to show you that some people don’t understand math very well that went to MIT. … You would have to charge an extraordinary amount because there’s not enough transactions to add up to the billions of dollars of budget that these online platforms pay. … Some people are just not educated to understand how transaction taxes work.”
On Perpetual Futures…
“I don’t see anything that’s valuable to it because first of all, commodities are perishable, so they’re not perpetual in nature. The one thing that you could call perpetual is crypto, until either it gets delisted, goes out of business or someone steals all your money. So then that’s no longer perpetual.”
On Compute Futures…
“I actually think the asset is one of those assets that can be very large, but you know, the problem is everybody wants it to be really large on day one, right? And I think again, we’re going to tie a lot of things back to last night [mid-term elections]. We’re going to see some people pumping the brakes a little bit because, as this room knows, that one of the campaign issues was data centers and how they’re going to go forward. These data centers need to get approvals from different institutions and the states.”
On Data Center Investments for AI…
“I do think that when you look at the hyperscalers and the investments that they have made, and the amount of money that’s gone into artificial intelligence, I don’t think there’s enough product of artificial intelligence to warrant the amount of money that’s come at it.”
On Why the Ag Community Is So Important…
“You know that in 435 congressional districts … Every single one of those congressional districts, every single one, has some form of agribusiness in it. Some form, whatever it is, small, big, small. You don’t think this is a powerful group of people? This is way bigger than the Banking Committee.”
On The Potential Crisis That Keeps Him Awake At Night…
“I think it’s 2007 for retail. I think retail has gotten over leveraged. I think they’ve gotten – they don’t understand auto deleveraging. They don’t understand when you’re in a product, you’re in it for a hot second, and then you can get auto liquidated out. I think there’s so many people chasing the retail dollars going forward that I think, unfortunately, retail is going to get hurt here because of some of the things that are being deployed for them. I said it earlier: contracts are being designed for retail. I’ve never seen that in my entire life. They’re being designed for speculators. That’s not the way risk management works”
‘Life Advice’ for the Industry…
“Don’t take a shortcut. … I like looking through the windshield, not the rearview mirror, because I love seeing the future and seeing what we can do. I think you look in the rearview mirror just to remind yourself where you came from, so you don’t make the same mistake twice. But look through the windshield and go forward.”