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The Montréal Exchange (MX) will relist futures contracts on Canadian shares on March 2, 2012.
Trading information
- The trading unit shall be determined for each Share Futures contract
(generally, 100 shares of Canadian individual stocks). - The tick increment is C$0.01 equivalent to a tick value of $1.00
(C$0.01 X 100 shares). - The position limit varies between the equivalent of 1,350,000 shares and 7,500,000 shares, net long or net short positions in all contract months combined.
- The reporting limit is the equivalent of 25,000 shares, gross long or gross short, in all contract months combined.
- Margin requirements will be determined on the basis of rates established by the clearing corporation and are dependent on the margin interval for the individual stock. Margin requirements will be published shortly by means of a circular.
- Cross-margin relief between share futures and equity options where the underlying is the same for both is provided.
- Five contract months will be listed at all times, the first two non-quarterly months (serials) and the first three quarterly months (quarterlies). For the launch date, the contract months listed are April 2012 (J12), May 2012 (K12), June 2012 (M12), September 2012 (U12), December (Z12) and March (H13).
- EFPs and EFRs may be used to either initiate or liquidate a futures position. Information on basis trading is below.
- Offer and sale of share futures contracts in the United States: Note that Share Futures contracts cannot be offered and/or sold in the United States.
Should you require technical assistance, or wish to carry out testing in our development environment, do not hesitate to contact our Technical Help Desk at 1-877-588-8489 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-877-588-8489 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or by email at samsupport@m-x.ca.
Initial list of Canadian stocks
| Symbol | Underlying | Company Name |
|---|---|---|
| FBO | BMO | Bank of Montreal |
| FNS | BNS | Bank of Nova Scotia (The) |
| FBA | ABX | Barrick Gold Corporation |
| FBC | BCE | BCE Inc. |
| FCB | CM | Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce |
| FCN | CNR | Canadian National Railway Company |
| FEA | ECA | EnCana Corporation |
| FIM | IMG | IAMGOLD Corporation |
| FMF | MFC | Manulife Financial Corporation |
| FNB | NA | National Bank of Canada |
| FRY | RY | Royal Bank of Canada |
| FSU | SU | Suncor Energy Inc. |
| FLF | SLF | Sun Life Financial |
| FRT | TRI | Thomson Reuters Corporation |
| FTD | TD | Toronto Dominion Bank (The) |
Basis trading
Indicative share futures basis prices, provided by approved participants, will be made available on the MX's website at: http://www.m-x.ca/nego_prix_base_cat_en.php.
Approved Participants interested in providing indicative share futures basis prices should contact Ms. Gladys Karam, Director, Equity Derivatives – Financial Markets, by email at gkaram@m-x.ca.
Fees
To support this product relisting, MX is waiving share futures contract execution and clearing fees for six months as of the relisting date.
Following the six-month fee waiver, transaction fees will be as follows:
- $0.25 for clients and approved participants (domestic and foreign)
- $0.16 for participants in the Liquidity Provider Rebate Program
Advantages of share futures
- Ease of short selling (no uptick rule)
- Lower margin costs and efficient cross margining
- Minimal currency exposure for foreign participant
- Great for synthetic stock lending
- Low-cost hedging instrument
- Highly effective tool for short-term portfolio adjustments, which can be used to replicate a stock position for hedging or asset allocation purposes
- Efficient, low-cost vehicle for pair and directional trading
- Arbitrage and spread trading opportunities against the cash, the option and the futures markets
