The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), one of the world's leading derivatives exchanges, today successfully launched its Agricultural futures contracts on the e-cbot electronic trading platform side-by-side its open-auction platform during daytime trading hours.
Providing greater access to the CBOT's benchmark Agricultural markets, the expanded electronic trading schedule also creates increased trading opportunities for new and existing CBOT customers worldwide. Previously, CBOT's Agricultural futures contracts traded electronically only after hours, which enabled the CBOT to expand its distribution of its Agricultural products globally to the Asian and European sectors.
CBOT Chairman Charles P. Carey said, "This initiative pairs two of the CBOT's greatest assets - the longstanding expertise of our floor traders and our premier electronic trading platform - to further enhance the deep, liquid CBOT Agricultural markets. As with so many projects that we introduce, our liquidity providers are the Exchange's partner, and I would like to thank the members for helping us reach this important landmark for the CBOT."
CBOT President and Chief Executive Officer Bernard W. Dan said, "Our mission behind this action is to create greater opportunities for the entire marketplace, increase access to CBOT commodity products and aggressively work to create a single, centralized pool of liquidity between the floor and screens. This initiative also is an important element of our global expansion strategy. All together, these efforts underscore the CBOT's role as the pricing benchmark within the world of agriculture."
The CBOT first extended the electronic trading hours of its South American Soybean futures contract and its Ethanol futures contracts in May. Since then, the CBOT Ethanol futures surpassed the 1,000-contract mark in open interest, setting a new all-time record of 1,068 contracts on July 10.
The electronic trading hours for the CBOT's Agricultural futures complex, which includes Corn, Wheat, Soybean, Soybean Oil, Soybean Meal, Rough Rice and Oat contracts are during daytime trading from 9:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. (Chicago Time) and resume from 6:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.
CBOT Chief Operating Officer Bryan T. Durkin said, "We are committed to maintaining our hybrid trading model and are utilizing technology that equally supports our electronic and open auction trading platforms. While deploying this technology is critical, we're very aware that in order to be successful, even the best technology needs to be seamlessly integrated into the CBOT trading environment. These efforts are geared toward tapping into one of the Exchange's greatest assets - our liquidity providers."