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The event of Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) negative oil clearing price on April 20, 2020, in which commodity futures traded in a negative range, is significant to the financial community worldwide. Through discussions of the so-called “best practice” rule for professional behaviors in practice with a number of examples and standards established by professional organizations, it seems that a better option for CME’s execution would have been to first seek feedback from stakeholders internationally within a reasonable transition period before implementing the proposed new trading (or updating) rule that came into effect in the month of April 2020.

Extant studies and my own work show that in US listed corporations, the presence of a firm’s founder adds value to the firm. The incremental value increases with the extent of decision rights controlled by the founder. Furthermore, the value addition is higher if the founder CEO is younger at the time of the initial public offering and decreases with the founder’s tenure in the firm. Further investigation reveals that the founders add value by improving operating performance and being more transparent than similar non-founder firms. Moreover, the founders are more focused on the strategic positioning of the firm in improving operating performance — they improve profit margins in differentiated firms while improving efficiency in firms with cost-leadership strategy. Analysts and investors can benefit by incorporating these insights into their analysis.