"The addition of foreign exchange futures trading, combined with the recent appointment of Jack Sandner to lead our futures group, underscores the Company's commitment to expanding and diversifying our derivatives product offerings to better serve our professional trader customers," said Lou Klobuchar, Chief Brokerage Officer, E*TRADE Securities LLC. "E*TRADE Professional was one of the first to add E-mini products as a futures trading component to its professional equities trading platform, Lightspeed, and is focused on continually offering industry-leading trading products."
Stephen Ehrlich, Vice President, Brokerage, E*TRADE Brokerage Holding and head of E*TRADE Professional, added, "From one single platform, our customers can now trade four different stock market index E-mini products and two foreign exchange futures products, making E*TRADE Professional one of the most comprehensive platforms available for professional traders."
The new foreign exchange products are fully integrated into the Lightspeed platform and risk management tools, allowing professional traders to transact and monitor their futures activity alongside their equity activity. Lightspeed's superior technology gives customers the option of viewing the quote data using standard Futures Level II format, as well as the more advanced Vertical Ladder format preferred by many professional traders.
"We are delighted that E*TRADE Professional is enthusiastic about our E-mini equity product line and is offering our electronically traded foreign exchange products. Since we introduced around-the-clock GLOBEX trading of FX products, we have seen significant growth in that area, including a 109 percent increase in average daily electronic volume in September compared to one year earlier," said CME Chairman Terry Duffy.
Like the E-mini stock index products, the foreign exchange futures trade on a quarterly cycle - March, June, September and December - and have a comparable open-outcry contract that trades simultaneously, thus offering opportunities for increased liquidity. One difference between the foreign exchange futures and index futures is the expiration/delivery process. While index futures "cash settle," foreign exchange futures have a physical delivery process requiring that any open currency positions be delivered or received upon expiration. E*TRADE Professional monitors and sends notifications for open positions one week prior to expiration. The majority of futures contracts are closed prior to expiration.
