"We convened an Ad Hoc Advisory Group consisting of industry participants and members of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association as well as other users of the live cattle contract," CME Chairman Terry Duffy said. "Their expertise and advice were invaluable as we constructed a contract that is intended to be useful to the broadest constituency of market participants."
"We believe increasing deliverable weights will bring the contract into line with long-term industry trends toward heavier cattle and, thus, its usefulness to hedgers," said CME President and Chief Executive Officer Jim McNulty. "Other revisions to the delivery process are designed to facilitate deliveries for all parties involved in the delivery on the CME's live cattle contract."
The revisions include increasing the spot month position limits to 450 contracts between first notice day and the day before the last five business days of the contract month, and additional live graded delivery points at Guymon and Texhoma, Oklahoma. A uniform live grading fee of $100 will be implemented at all delivery points, also beginning with December 2003 deliveries.
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 and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moves an average of about $1.8 billion per day in settlement payments and manages $27.4 billion in collateral deposits. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc.
