NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The depressed IPO market could end the year with a jolt next week when the 104-year-old Chicago Mercantile Exchange, home to cattle futures and Nasdaq futures, starts its own future as a publicly traded company.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc., a profitable, fast-growing business, plans to sell 4.75 million shares for $31-to-$34 a share the week of Dec. 2. That's as much as $161.5 million dollars -- not a large amount. And the shares are not expected to double in their debut the way many IPOs did in 1999.

But that hasn't kept analysts from generally liking the deal for the Chicago Merc's strong market position in the quickly-evolving world of financial, stock index and interest rates futures.

"We love it," said David Menlow, president of IPOFinancial.com, when asked about the deal. "We think this will be one of the banner stocks of the fourth quarter."

IP0s have raised about $27 billion this year, according to Thomson Financial/First Call. The annual amount has declined every year since 1999, when a record $61.7 billion of deals came to market.

The Chicago Merc IPO has plenty of risks. Founded as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board in 1998, the Merc has been a for-profit company for just two years after demutualizing in 2000. The Merc's members, whose interest may not always be aligned with those of shareholders, will own most of the company.

Quick to find success in stock-index futures like one that tracks the Standard & Poor's 500, the exchange may be unable to keep pace with the rapid technological changes in the multitrillion-dollar derivatives markets, where hedgers and speculators meet.

"Will they continue to be as successful over the next 30 years as they have over the last 30 years?" asked James Angel, a Georgetown University professor who has done consulting work with for the Nasdaq Stock Market and New York Stock Exchange. "Nobody knows."

Unlike other newly public companies in long-established businesses, the business of running a publicly traded futures market is without much precedent. No U.S. financial market has gone public before.

The Merc makes money by charging for executing trades and then charging to settle those trades. It also sells the data on products like hog futures, Swiss franc futures and Treasury bill futures that eventually end up in newspapers, financial television and Web sites.

During the first nine months of the year, revenue rose 18.3 percent to $282.2 million, the Merc said. Net income for the nine months ended September 30 rose to $61.0 million, from $54.5 million in the year-ago period.

The exchange said 413.13 million contracts traded in the first nine months of the year, up 40 percent from year-ago figures. About $1.7 billion a day in settlement payments are moved by the Merc, which manages $27.7 billion in deposits.

"The Merc is the premier exchange," said Jeffrey Hirschkorn, senior IPO analyst for IPO Monitor.

But it's not the only one. The Chicago Board of Trade rules the world of Treasury bond and note futures. It's also where corn, soybeans and wheat futures trade. Gold and oil futures dominate the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Nasdaq Stock Market plans to go public next year after delaying its IPO amid declining trading volumes of bear market.

Georgetown University's Angel said the Chicago Merc, which is coming to the public market nearly three years after the stock market peaked, may be a way to play the recovery of financial markets.

"Right now financial stocks are somewhat cyclically depressed," said Angel.

The Merc plans to trade under the ticker symbol "CME" and list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. It plans to use the proceeds for technology, capital expenditures and possible acquisitions.

Citing the federally-mandated quiet period, which prohibits promotional content immediately before and after the offering, a Chicago Merc spokesperson declined to comment for this article.

But in a filling with the SEC, the exchange had plenty of warnings. The trend toward electronic trading may divert volume away from its mostly open outcry trading facilities, the Merc said.

And the exchange also said its license agreement with Standard & Poor's will no longer be exclusive after Dec. 31, 2008. The deal using the Nasdaq name for its futures ends in April 2006.

Still, in a sign of strong demand for the offering, the Merc's underwriters upped the deal by 58 percent early this month from 3 million shares to 4.75 million earlier this month.

"Quality seems to ooze from every pore," said David Menlow, of IPOFinancial.com