The days of measuring the “consensus” expectations for leading economic indicators by polling economists could be numbered. If the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has anything to do with it, its derivative contracts, which enable investors to hedge exposure to economic indicators such as US non-farm payrolls, could soon do the job just as well.

The early popularity of the products, known as “economic derivatives”, suggests a healthy appetite for using them as tools for hedging risk and for forming a market consensus in advance of important releases.