CBOT Chairman Charles P. Carey said, "Options on mini-sized Dow futures and futures on the Dow Jones U.S. TMI are part of the CBOT's aggressive new product rollout for 2004. We expect these innovative products to further solidify the exchange's position in the equity markets and increase the CBOT's already strong volume figures. While trading futures and options instruments based on the DJIASM -the world's leading equity index-provide a watershed of trading opportunities, I am confident that these new CBOT Dow Jones futures and options contracts will provide additional risk management opportunities for our members and customers."
President of Dow Jones Indexes, Mike Petronella said, "The Dow Jones Industrial AverageSM and Dow Jones U.S. Total Market Index both are excellent tools to measure the performance of the U.S. market. By launching options on mini-sized Dow futures and futures on the Dow Jones U.S. Total Market Index the CBOT takes an innovative step in offering their members and customers exposure to U.S. blue chip companies as well as access to 95 percent of the free float capitalization of the U.S. market. The CBOT offers an excellent platform to make these products successful."
CBOT President and CEO Bernard W. Dan said, "The mini-sized Dow futures options promise to be a key compliment to our rapidly growing mini-sized Dow futures contract. We expect that the strong customer and professional trading demand that exists for Dow futures will carry over to the mini-sized Dow options, and TMI futures will have particular appeal to institutional users as a representative, rules based benchmark of the overall U.S. equity market."
The Dow Jones U.S. TMI is a broad-based free-float market capitalization weighted index that represents 95 percent of the total value of U.S. stocks. The contract will have a relatively large contract value specifically designed to meet the needs of institutional and professional market participants.
CBOT mini-sized Dow futures now average more than 55,000 contracts per day with a monthly growth rate greater than 15 percent. The contract provides customers significant cost, margin and leverage advantages over similar Dow related Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and cash index options products.
Options on mini-sized Dow futures and Dow Jones U.S. TMI futures will trade from 7:15 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. (Central Time) Sunday through Friday, respectively. For more information on CBOT products, log onto the Exchange web site at http://www.cbot.com.
