The Chicago Board of Trade (Cbot) is upgrading its e-cbot electronic trading system - which is powered by the Liffe Connect platform from Euronext.liffe - in order to expand global access to its products. The news comes as the exchange signals a rise in trading fees for some US Treasury futures contracts by up to 60%.
Cbot says new functionality on the platform will include order book management, which will improve users' ability to oversee risk exposure across multiple users.
Additionally, stop orders will exist at the host level, expanding the number of order types directly accessible via the platform, and nine inter-commodity spread strategies for financial products will be added to the system.
Bernard Dan, president and CEO, Cbot, says: "The upgrade will not only increase the functionality available on the Cbot electronic trading platform, but the enhancements also are designed to expand global access to Cbot products and build further liquidity across all product categories."
Cbot says the initiative will increase risk management opportunities for customers and also will provide enhanced speed and capacity.
In addition, the exchange says it will move the hosting of its e-trading platform from Chicago to London and extend the number of trading hours on the system. This will make Cbot's markets for interest rate, equity index and metals products available to electronic market users for an additional hour each day, bringing the trading day to 22 hours.
News of the upgrade comes as the exchange announces considerable fee hikes for users of its e-trading system.
As of 1 October 2005, the exchange is raising fees for e-trading of US Treasury futures contracts by 60%, from three cents to five cents per contract. Cbot members trading for their own account on the electronic platform will pay five cents per contract, up from the current three cents. Fees charged to non-members for trading US Treasury futures will increase 50%, from 30 cents to 45 cents per contract.
The Chicago exchange previously slashed trading fees for US treasury futures in early 2004, just prior to the launch of the Eurex US platform.
Eurex is currently contesting a suit filed against Cbot and CME alleging the Chicago exchanges violated the Sherman Act by lowering fees to "predatory levels" just prior to the launch of its platform in the US market. However, the Swiss-German exchange failed to make in-roads into the Treasury futures market and says it will now concentrate on currency futures instead.