Today is the last trading day in November. The month has been a good one. In fact, it is quite likely that November will prove to be one of the best months in terms of volume for the entire year. For that, we thank our loyal customers who have stayed with us during the last two-and-a-half difficult months. All of us in the NYBOT family hope the good trend will continue.
The construction to enlarge our Long Island City facility continues. As you all know, we started up our third and fourth pits, as we had promised, on November 12. After some difficulty with the phone system, partly due to the tragic crash of the American Airline plane that day, trading has gone smoothly. We are grateful to both our members and our customers for their rapid adjustment to our new trading hours, which we expect to last until the end of January. More on trading hours follows below.
It should also be noted that we have begun the process of putting TIPS screens in all the booths, which should further improve the efficiency of the entire trading process. We have more screens on order and hope to have screens in all the booths prior to the end of 2001. We also expect shortly to resume testing of our electronic order entry system, which received terrific reviews at our suite at the FIA meeting in Chicago this week.
We now have the members' staging area on the second floor partially ready, though it will be a while until phones are installed. Therefore, if members plan to use the area for other than relaxation or shelter over the next few weeks, we urge you to bring cell phones with you to use on the second floor.
We expect to receive bids in the next week or so for the complete construction of the second floor and the fifth and sixth trading pits on the first floor. If all goes according to plan, the second floor should be ready by the end of the year. When finished, it will include plenty of tables and chairs for relaxing or working, telephones that can be activated using a personal code, a new TIPS room to supplement the screens in the booths on the trading floor, a vending area, offices for Membership and Compliance, and an attended coatroom.
We are targeting the end of January to have the fifth and sixth pits ready to use. At that point, we should be able to expand the hours in which we trade sugar, coffee and cotton. Many people have been asking whether any decision has been made regarding what the new hours will be, and which products will trade in the new pits.
The short answer is "no." However, we need to start the process of receiving thoughts from members and customers. Therefore, below you will find a proposed schedule that we could move to when the fifth and sixth pits are ready. In the table that follows, Pits 1 and 2 are the large pits we had when we came to LIC; Pits 3 and 4 are the small pits we opened on November 12; Pits 5 and 6 are the two new larger pits we plan to open at the end of January.
I emphasize that this schedule is for comment only at this point; before a final determination is made, we plan to have discussions with members and customers, with a final decision subject to the approval of the Executive Committee and the Board in January.
| Product | Trading Pit | Possible Hours |
| Cocoa | 3-4 | 08:00-11:50 |
| Coffee | 1-2 | 08:45-11:40 |
| Sugar | 5-6 | 09:00-12:30 |
| Cotton | 1-2 | 12:00-15:00 |
| FCOJ | 3-4 | 12:30-14:45 |
Lastly, we continue to pursue all options in our search for a permanent facility. Talks with NYMEX, being led by Fred Schoenhut, continue. NYMEX has provided one proposal, and discussions on that are being held. All of us are conscious that, although our disaster recovery site has performed admirably, it is not a realistic option for the long term. However, at this point it is not possible to give a sense of timing regarding either the decision on a facility or when we might be ready to move from LIC, though the likelihood of a move before the second half of 2002 appears low.
I look forward to hearing from you. However, most of all, I wish everyone a joyous Holiday Season and a happy and prosperous New Year.
Mark Fichtel
