Dow Jones Newswires | The top executives of CME Group Inc. on Tuesday pushed the exchange operator’s method of dealing with price volatility as a model for other asset classes, while calling for improved coordination between cash and derivatives markets.

Craig Donohue, chief executive of CME, said a five-second pause in trading at the height of the May 6 market turmoil spurred a recovery in equity index futures prices and helped other markets recover.

“CME Globex futures led the rally and brought the market back into equilibrium,” said Donohue in an interview. “This does not exist on the securities side.”

Regulators, lawmakers and exchanges are scrutinizing May 6 trading activity as they seek the cause of a dramatic plunge that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average lose nearly 1,000 points in value before staging a partial recovery late in the trading session.

Donohue stressed that the futures market “did not precipitate, and certainly didn’t cause, any decline in the market.”

Futures-market operators have been on the defensive since last week after some stock exchange executives suggested the wild gyrations may have been triggered by activity in CME’s electronically traded S&P 500 contract.

Terry Duffy, CME’s executive chairman, hit back in prepared testimony to be delivered to lawmakers Tuesday, stating that liquidity and spreads on its S&P E-mini futures contracts were “significantly better” during the turmoil than those of related products traded on other exchanges.

Duffy’s testimony included a recommendation that circuit breakers to prevent wild price swings be harmonized across all markets.

He also called for the CME’s “stop price logic functionality” — a five-second pause in trading to rebuild liquidity — be adopted across all markets.