CME's (CME) Duffy Says Jeb Bush Most Qualified to Lead U.S., Says Saudi Arabia Trying to Put U.S. Oil Explorers Out of Business

Executive Chairman and President of the CME Group (NYSE: CME) Terry Duffy spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Maria Bartiromo about the markets and a potential presidential run by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Duffy spoke about the markets saying, "the equities have had an amazing year" and that "I actually thought we would see more of a sell-off going into the first of the year because people had such tremendous gains going into it." When asked whether Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s last name will hurt him in a potential 2016 presidential race Duffy said, "I think the name will become irrelevant by 2016" and that "I think this is the most qualified individual to lead this country." Duffy went on to say, since former Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced he is actively exploring running for president in 2016 “I think that takes Mitt Romney out of the equation."

On oil, Duffy thinks Saudi Arabia and OPEC "hammered the market in order to take the explorers out of business and put them upside down in their exploration."

Excerpts from the interview are below:

On whether Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s last name will hurt him in a potential 2016 presidential race:

"I think people will ultimately do what's in the best interest of their own needs and what they think is in the needs of the country. And I think the name will become irrelevant by 2016... I have a place in Florida. I watched him be governor down there. I think this is the most qualified individual to lead this country. I think he will get the message out and people won't care about his last name."

On whether other contenders will come forward and announce they are running for President now:

"I think it takes them out... Marco Rubio, and I think that takes Mitt Romney out of the equation. I think Mitt's been exploring. And he's been around for the last several elections and I think he was looking at if there is nobody else, I will be the guy. And now there is somebody else, I don't think he will be the guy."

On the markets:

"On the overall markets in particular there are so many different asset classes we could talk about, but we'll talk about just the equities for a second. The equities have had an amazing year; that is stating the obvious. I actually thought we would see more of a sell-off going into the first of the year because people had such tremendous gains going into it…it's just amazing how much capital has been made in the markets the last 12 to 14 months where people are actually taking those profits off the table now."

On the decline of oil:

"Oil sat at $92 a barrel roughly for almost a year-and-a-half and then it just all of a sudden fell out of bed. And you look at what the exploration was going on in the United States between the shales in Pennsylvania to shales in the Dakotas, we were getting ready to become more energy efficient with the crude products in the United States. In order to do so, you have to have the input costs, or the cost of the overall product, to be at a certain level. Those levels are anywhere between $80 and $60 a barrel depending who you speak to, that is actually trying to bring the oil out of the ground. Now, the people that produce the most of the oil in Saudi Arabia, I think they've actually hammered the market in order to take the explorers out of business and put them upside down in their exploration. Because, by 2018, we were looking at producing 17.5 million to 18 million barrels a day in the United States. That's exactly what we use."

On the success of the CME stock:

"Well, we’ll start at the beginning of the year a little bit, Maria. The company has grown very much through this year; we're up about 8 percent year over year just in volume. We have had a tremendous last couple months. Volatility creeped back into the market place. I’m actually surprised more volatility has not come into the market when you look all the geopolitical events that have happened in this country in the last year, whether it is Vladimir Putin going into Crimea, whether it’s an ISIS state, whether it’s -- all these different events and all of a sudden the market never reacted. Markets eventually always react to something; they can't keep shutting out of this type of news. So we actually saw some volatility pick up and it tailed off again. But was interesting in the month of October, all of our major asset classes were up 50 percent for the month. Now, normally we’ll see one asset class go up, whether it was interest rates or equities, and the others may go down. But in this particular situation in October, we saw all of them go up 50 percent. So we're having a good year. And on a dividend -- we announced the $2 special dividend that will paid in January for record holders of this month, and we think that that’s very attractive for the owners of our stock. A lot of the big owners of our stock are very much dividend oriented and so is CME Group."

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