Minneapolis Grain Exchange Establishes Launch Date For New Wheat Index Contracts

The Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX) ownership has approved rules and regulations for Soft Red Wheat Index (SRI) and Spring Wheat Index (SWI) futures and options. Ballots were counted on December 2, 2003 and the contracts are scheduled to launch December 19, 2003 on the exchange's electronic trading platform, MGEXpress®.

The new contracts will join the Hard Winter Wheat Index (HWI) in the exchange's suite of financially settled wheat futures and options and its pit-traded hard red spring wheat futures and options contracts. The Soft Red Wheat Index (SRI) is a simple average of approximately 360 country elevator bids for U.S. No. 2 soft red winter wheat collected daily by Data Transmission Network (DTN), an Omaha-based electronic commerce and information services company. The Spring Wheat Index (SWI) is an average of approximately 200 country elevator bids for U.S. No. 1 hard red spring wheat.

SRI and SWI futures and options contracts will settle financially each calendar month to a three-day average of the Soft Red Wheat Index and the Spring Wheat Index, respectively. DTN collects elevator bids daily for soft red winter wheat and hard red spring wheat and averages them to arrive at the SRI and the SWI. The contracts will reflect country-origin pricing for soft red wheat and hard spring wheat. Because there is no delivery alternative, futures and options contracts will expire simultaneously.

Trading hours for SRI and SWI futures and options are as follows:

Morning session: 8:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. (Central Time)

Afternoon session: 2:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. (Central Time).

MGEX, established in 1881, is the only market for hard red spring wheat, Hard Winter Wheat Index (HWI), National Corn Index (NCI) and National Soybean Index (NSI) futures and options. www.mgex.com