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The Gold Mid-Curve options on futures will complement the very successful one-year Mid-Curve (Short) and the two-year Mid-Curve (Green) options, which have been actively traded for years in CME's interest rate complex.
Like Shorts and Greens, Golds will be short-dated options on long-term underlying futures. For example, a December 2003 Gold Mid-Curve option will expire on Dec.12, 2003 into a position in the December 2007 Eurodollar futures. The contracts will be listed in a series of four quarterly month expirations. At the launch of trading on Aug. 18, the following expirations will be listed on all four Gold contracts:
| Gold Mid-Curves to be listed | ||
| Expiration | Settlement Date | Underlying Futures |
| September 2003 | September 2007 | |
| December 2003 | December 2007 | |
| March 2004 | March 2008 | |
| June 2004 | June 2008 | |
The front two contracts will trade with a minimum price movement - or tick size - of one-half point, while the back two contracts will trade with a full-point minimum tick size.
Trading activity in Eurodollar Short and Green Mid-Curve options - representing the first two years of Eurodollar contract expirations - hit new records throughout the first six months of 2003. Average daily volume in the contracts was more than 112,000 contracts, representing a roughly 50 percent increase from the same period in the prior year.
Eurodollars were the world's most actively traded futures contract in the world in 2002, with total volume of over 202 million contracts for the year.
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.
GLOBEX is a registered trademark of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Further information about CME and its products is available on the CME Web site at www.cme.com.
