A WHALE OF A SALES DRIVE
The tourists had left for the day, but New York's Museum of Natural History was far from empty. A thousand formally dressed guests mingled in the Hall of Ocean Life, entertained by Eddie Kenrick and David Ruffin (ex-Temptations) while overshadowed by the huge sperm whale that hangs from the ceiling.
This was the climax of last November's $2 million campaign to launch the new dollar index contract of the Financial Instrument Exchange (FINEX). Other extravagances of the promotion included marketing trips to Paris and London, and a whistle-stop tour of US financial centres in a private railroad car.
In the great scheme of things it doesn't much matter whether the dollar index fails at FINEX, a division of the New York Cotton Exchange. It is important only because it shows how desperate the marketing efforts of stock exchanges around the world have become. Each exchange is involved in a bitter struggle with every other exchange for that most precious of financial commodities: liquidity. If an exchange loses it - either to other exchanges or to the growing telephone market - it is dead.
Big losers include Toronto, Johannesburg and the American Stock Exchange, while London and the Singapore International Monetary Exchange are rapidly expanding their trading in the all-important derivatives.