Out of the blue I bought BOT, the Chicago Board of Trade this morning. It went public a few days ago and like CBOU before I totally missed the news of the IPO (Note: I'm glad I missed CBOU, not that I would have bought it, but I grew curious of it in spite of the fact that it's quite a worthless stock, IMHO).
Now as a Chicagoan I may have faith in the CBOT a little too much, but the CME Chicago Mercantile Exchange that went public 3 years ago has been doint tremendously good (+800%), the Nasdaq (NDAQ) is on the rise too, so I briefly pondered, gathered some crucial informations (there are pros and cons that I'm about to list) and hit the "place order" button on my broker's website.
Now is that a value play, a growth play, something else?
As far as I can see it, I would call it a good valugrowth play, trading is on the rise (who doesn't have at least an IRA or 401k in today's world) and will probably be for a while, as younger generation are more familiar with it (and as costs of trading goes down). Warren Buffet explains he bought G (Gilette) because the population is increasing, therefore there will be more people to shave. I think there will be more traders in the future, I think individual investors will grow interested in options (what the CBOT mostly trades, along with futures) therefore I think BOT will rise in the long run and prosper.
For those who don't know, the CBOT is on of the last place on earth where brokers are still gesticulating to place their orders, making it somewhat of a museum, but especially giving it some room to improve whenever it flips to the electronic marketplace type of organization. This I believe will be a big pro for the stock. The Con is mostly that trading prices are decreasing every other day, making it harder to squeeze out extra fees.
Anyway, this is where I eventually put my free cash, I am convinced this is a good quite safe place to put it, and if anything happens, I'll at least have a place to seek revenge two blocks away from my office.
