Combined with additional trading incentive programs, the enhancements are intended to make it more attractive to electronically trade in the exchange’s current 1.2 million contracts a day market across all of its major asset classes: interest rates, equities, foreign exchange (FX) and commodities.
Beginning March 25, 2007, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Globex electronic trading platform will support user-defined spreads, which allow traders to create a spread if CME does not already offer it. This functionality upgrade will make it possible to create, request quotes on, and trade unique options spreads that are not pre-defined on CME Globex.
We continue to add new functionality, broaden market access and increase the types of options products on CME Globex, said Rick Redding, managing director of CME products and services. We believe the functionality enhancements and trading incentives that we intend to roll out this month will create additional electronic options trading opportunities in all of our product groups and attract new users to our markets.
CME’s internet-based trading application, CME EOS Trader, has also been upgraded to fully support the new functionality. The system will offer credit controls as well as a shared order book, allowing multiple users to manage a single order book. CME EOS Trader enhancements will also be available through a pilot program for tablet PCs that will be available for CME Eurodollar options floor traders.
