CBOT Chairman Nickolas J. Neubauer stated, "As we want to keep pace with the vibrant and changing municipal marketplace, the CBOT has re-engineered its municipal futures contract. We have crafted a new broad-based index with a transparent pricing mechanism, and new settlement features-all of which reflect today's tax-exempt market and better meet the needs of our customers."
The 10-Year Municipal Note Index includes up to 250 of the largest, most liquid, and most widely held issues and is designed to be representative of the high-grade sector of the tax-exempt bond market. In addition to being rated AAA by both Standard and Poor's Corporation and Moody's Investors Service, each bond in the index has a principal size of at least $50 million and is a component of an issue that has a deal size of at least $200 million.
The value of the 10-Year Municipal Note Index will be generated once daily by a single independent evaluated pricing service, FT Interactive Data, a leading global provider of securities pricing and related financial data. . FT Interactive Data will provide evaluated prices for the individual component bonds and compute the closing value of the index in accordance with a formula provided by CBOT. FT Interactive Data has been providing a similar function for the BBI-40 Index since September 20, 2002.
"We are pleased to partner with the Chicago Board of Trade on this key municipal index," said Ian Blance, vice president of Evaluation Services for FT Interactive Data. "The CBOT has a long-standing reputation as an industry leader and this new offering continues to demonstrate their innovation and market leadership. As a leading provider of fixed income evaluations for more than 20 years, FT Interactive Data welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the transparency and efficiency of the municipal market and our mutual customers."
The CBOT conducted an extensive review of providers and chose FT Interactive Data based on the quality of their evaluations, their technological flexibility and their reputation as a leader in the marketplace.
As the only contract designed specifically for the tax-exempt market, the CBOT 10-Year Municipal Note Index futures will provide the market with an efficient and transparent risk management tool. CBOT Muni Note futures can be incorporated into a variety of hedging and portfolio management strategies, and can be spread against other CBOT contracts such as U.S. Treasury, agency, or swap futures.
To learn more about the 10-Year Municipal Note Index contract, visit www.cbot.com/muni.
About the CBOT
Providing a diverse mix of financial, commodity, and equity futures and options products, the Chicago Board of Trade advances into the 21st Century on the strength of over 150 years of member-based trading expertise, unparalleled liquidity, and market integrity. Via open auction and screen-based trading, the CBOT provides premier customer service to risk managers and active traders worldwide.
About FT Interactive Data
FT Interactive Data is a leading provider of financial information and analytical software to global markets. FT Interactive Data supplies global securities pricing, dividend, corporate action, and descriptive information supporting fund pricing, securities operations, research, and portfolio management. The company collects, edits, maintains, and delivers data on more than 3.5 million securities, commodities, and derivative instruments traded around the world. This data includes daily evaluations for more than 2.5 million fixed-income issues.
To learn more about FT Interactive Data, visit www.FTInteractiveData.com There you can find pertinent information for trading municipal bond futures and to subscribe to Municipal updates.
