NYBOT Successfully Launches Pulp Futures Contract

The New York Board of Trade® (NYBOT®) successfully launched its pulp futures contract today on the first day of trading, with 312 futures contracts changing hands. The futures contract started trading at 8:00 AM and stopped at 9:30 AM (NY Time). “We’re very happy with how the pulp futures contract traded today,” said Frederick W. Schoenhut, NYBOT Chairman. “We had a great deal of interest from both the pulp trade and the speculators today, and we’re optimistic this contract will mature into a liquid, viable tool for this very important industry.”

Pulp comes from natural plant materials and is used to make a wide range of products such as paper and paperboard, representing an $86 billion dollar industry. Canada, the U.S., and the Nordic countries are the largest producers of pulp. The NYBOT contract is for 20 air-dry metric tons of Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft (NBSK) pulp, which must be a commercially accepted “prime” grade of a specific moisture, dirt count and brightness. Pulp Futures contracts, priced in U.S. dollars, will be listed for February, April, June, August, October and December months, with April 2005 the first contract to be listed.

The Pulp section on the NYBOT website (www.nybot.com/pulp) has more information regarding the new contracts.

The New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) is New York’s original futures exchange, where the world trades food, fiber and financial products. For well over a century, the New York Board of Trade has provided reliability, integrity and security in a global marketplace for cocoa, coffee, cotton, ethanol, orange juice and sugar, as well as currency and index futures and options. Information about the New York Board of Trade can be found at www.nybot.com and www.nybotlive.com.