"E-mini S&P 500 futures were visionary in their combination of electronic trading, smaller contract size and synergy with an established floor-traded contract," said CME Chairman Terry Duffy. "Today, our E-mini futures on the S&P MidCap 400, Nasdaq-100 and Russell 2000 indexes are also growing in volume and open interest, and other exchanges are emulating the concept we pioneered five years ago."
"With E-mini S&P 500 futures, individual investors for the first time could access stock index futures sized to fit their investing and risk management needs," said CME President and Chief Executive Officer Jim McNulty. "Opening access to GLOBEX® for non-CME members two years ago made these products available to a much broader customer base-contributing to the product's unprecedented success."
Average daily volume in August 2002 was 509,084, and the single-day volume record occurred on July 24, 2002, when 975,985 contracts changed hands. Year-to-date through August, volume in E-mini S&P 500 futures is up 187 percent.
E-mini S&P 500 futures are traded exclusively on the exchange's GLOBEX electronic trading platform, virtually 24 hours per day. Regular trading hours on GLOBEX are from 3:45 p.m. Monday through Thursday (5:30 p.m. on Sundays and holidays) until 3:15 p.m. the following day. (All times are Central time.)
E-mini S&P 500 futures have an underlying value of $50 times the S&P Stock Price Index, or one-fifth that of CME's standard-sized S&P 500 future. At recent levels, one E-mini S&P 500 contract would have an underlying value of approximately $45,000 compared with $222,000 for the standard-sized contract. The initial minimum performance bond (margin) required to trade each contract is $3,563 compared to $17,813 for each standard-sized contract.
A fact sheet about CME's E-mini S&P 500 futures is also available at the following link: E-mini S&P 500 facts. Information about trading the product is at http://www.cme.com/products/index/esp500.cfm. .
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) is the largest futures exchange in the United States and the second largest exchange in the world for the trading of futures and options on futures. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on its trading floors and GLOBEX around-the-clock electronic trading platform. CME offers futures contracts and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moves about $1.5 billion per day in settlement payments and manages $27.1 billion in collateral deposits. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc.
