"CME electronic markets are open between three and thirteen hours longer per day than other major futures exchange, and our new GLOBEX trading hours are designed to make CME markets available at important times for U.S. and overseas traders," said CME Chairman Terry Duffy. "These new hours also will ensure that CME equity markets are open when corporate earnings typically are announced-after the close of the stock market."
"By moving our daily GLOBEX maintenance period to 4 p.m. and combining it with the regular market close of interest rate and foreign exchange products, we are able to increase our electronic trading hours for these significant global products and provide continuous trading from 5 p.m. until 4 p.m. the next day," said CME President and Chief Executive Officer Jim McNulty. "Our Asian customers in particular will be better served by this enhancement, because they will be able to trade CME products throughout their regular business day."
The new schedule will expand the hours of GLOBEX trading of stock index products by reducing the time between the afternoon market close and the start of GLOBEX trading from 30 minutes to 15 minutes; also for stock indexes, the new schedule will reduce the nightly shutdown for computer maintenance from one hour to 30 minutes., For interest rate and foreign exchange products, the new schedule will add one-half hour of trading daily by combining the system maintenance with the markets' regular close at 4 p.m.; those markets will re-open at 5 p.m.
The current and new GLOBEX trading hours for each product are detailed in the table below.
(1) The GLOBEX pre-opening session shall be conducted five minutes before the opening of trading at 3:30 p.m. and again from 4:50 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Trades concluded between 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. shall be posted for the next trade date. The next day's trading session shall recommence at 5:00 p.m. and trades concluded at 5:00 p.m. and after shall be for the next trade date (or 5:30 p.m. on Sundays and holidays).
(2) The daily trade session shall conclude at 4:00 p.m. - trades booked from 5:00 p.m. and after shall be booked for the next trade date (or 5:30 p.m. on Sundays and holidays). The GLOBEX pre-opening session shall be conducted from 4:40 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
(3) Actual opening / reopening times at 3:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. are subject to normal GLOBEX opening rotation schedules.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) is the largest futures exchange in the United States. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on its trading floors and GLOBEX® electronic trading platform. CME offers futures and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moved about $1.5 billion per day in settlement payments in the first half of 2003 and managed $29.1 billion in collateral deposits at June 30, 2003. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000® Index.
