The trades included 1,404 e-miNY crude oil futures contracts and 1,079 e-miNY natural gas futures contracts.
The new products trade on CME's GLOBEX® electronic trading platform and clear at the New York Mercantile Exchange clearinghouse.
As a basis of comparison, the standard-sized futures crude oil futures contract traded 1,884 contracts on March 30, 1983, its first day of trading, and the standard-sized natural gas contract traded 918 contracts on April 3, 1990, its first day of trading. The e-miNY energy futures contracts are sized at 40 percent of the size of the current contracts.
New York Mercantile Exchange President J. Robert Collins, Jr., said, "We are very pleased with the responsiveness of the trading community to these innovative new products. The e-miNY crude oil and natural gas futures contracts offer an attractive alternative instrument to complement retail trading portfolios and make it easier for individual investors to participate in these active markets."
CME Chairman Terrence A. Duffy and President and Chief Executive Officer Jim McNulty attended today's launch of the e-miNY energy contracts, which are modeled after CME's popular line of E-mini stock index products. Duffy executed one of the first trades in the new products.
