Education - CME Globex

CME Equity Index Products
CME futures contracts are designed to track the most popular
broad-based U.S. and international stock index benchmarks
in the financial world, including the Standard & Poor’s 500
(large-capitalization stocks), NASDAQ-100 (technology,
telecom and biotechnology stocks), Russell 2000 (smallcapitalization
stocks) and the Standard & Poor’s MidCap 400
(mid-size stocks).

CME Interest Rate Products
As a global benchmark for valuing and pricing interest rate
risk, the CME Eurodollar futures contract is the world’s most
actively traded futures product. Other CME interest rate products
offered on the platform include LIBOR futures/options and
swap rate futures.

CME Foreign Exchange Products
CME was the first exchange to introduce financial futures—
contracts not based on a physical commodity—when we
launched foreign exchange futures in 1972. On CME Globex, CME offers futures
and options on futures on major currencies, including the
European Union euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Swiss
franc, Canadian dollar and Mexican peso. These products
trade side-by-side on CME Globex and the open outcry
trading floor during the day and continue to trade on CME
Globex after the trading floor closes.

CME Commodity Products
Livestock, dairy and forest products are the basis of CME
commodity futures and options on futures. In 2002, CME introduced side-by-side electronic and open outcry trading of live cattle, feeder cattle and
lean hog futures.

CME Environmental Products
CME has also introduced a number of products that are risk
management tools designed to serve markets and industries
that traditionally have not had access to futures. For example, CME introduced the first exchangetraded weather contracts in 1999 to allow hedging and
speculation on fluctuations in the weather. In other cases, CME introduced
products based on innovative partnerships. These contracts
include the NYMEX e-miNY energy product suite. In 2004, CME introduced a suite of futures and options on futures based on three of the most commonly
used varieties of fertilizer, as well as CME X-Fund Index
futures, short-term contracts created by designated fund
designers.

OneChicago Security Futures
Security futures is the term used to collectively describe
futures on individual stocks, narrow-based indexes and
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Securities futures are listed
and traded on OneChicago, a joint venture exchange formed
in 2002 by CME in partnership with the Chicago Board of
Trade® (CBOT®) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange®
(CBOE®). CME provides seamless access to all OneChicago
security futures products via CME Globex.



The types of orders supported by the platform are:
Market Order
Market-Limit Order: immediately
executes as much as possible at the best available price.
Limit Order: A Limit order allows the buyer to define the
maximum price to pay and the seller the minimal price to
sell (the limit price).
Stop Order
Stop Limit Order: A Stop Limit order is triggered when the
order’s trigger price is traded on the market. The order then
enters the order book as a Limit order with the specified
limit price.

The order types defined here are applicable to products listed
and traded on CME Globex, and are supported by the
CME iLink interface.

Order Qualifiers
The following order qualifiers or modifiers may be used
on orders sent to the CME Globex host:
Day (Session): Orders specified as Day (Session) will
remain in the central order book for the duration of the
current trading session, unless traded or canceled by the
customer. All resting orders are eliminated at the end of
the session.
Good ‘Til Canceled (GTC): Orders specified as GTC
will remain in the central order book until the contract’s
expiration, unless traded or canceled by the customer.
Good ‘Til Date (GTD): Orders specified as GTD will remain
in the central order book until the date specified by the
customer, unless traded or canceled by the customer.
Fill Or Kill (FOK): Orders specified as FOK will either be
fully executed at opposite best price or will be canceled.*
Fill And Kill (FAK): Orders specified as FAK will have as
much quantity executed possible at opposite best price
and the remaining quantity will be canceled.

Electronic trading on CME Globex is available virtually
around the clock, from Sunday evening through late
Friday afternoon. Trading takes place during five daily
sessions, the period of time in which a customer
may enter, view, modify or cancel electronic orders.
During each session, all contracts transition through a
variety of pre-defined states, although the timing of these
states and the transition between them vary by product,
according to contract specifications. During each of these
states certain trading functionality is allowed or disallowed,
as detailed in the chart below*.
The start of the CME Globex session, which usually occurs
in the afternoon, generally marks the beginning of the next
trading day. (For example, orders entered during Sunday’s
evening session are dated for and cleared on Monday).
The trading day includes both the CME Globex session and
the trading floor open outcry session (i.e., “Regular Trading
Hours”), if the CME Globex and open outcry sessions overlap
for a given product.
Products that trade on CME Globex are classified into
three trading groups based on their hours of availability:
• “Side-by-Side” contracts trade on CME Globex and, for a
portion of the day, simultaneously via open outcry on the
trading floor.
• “Electronic-Only” contracts trade only on CME Globex.
• “After-Hours Electronic” contracts trade electronically
on CME Globex only after the product stops trading via
open outcry on the trading floor.

In Figure 1, you can see the Globex session described and the possibility you have to enter modify or cancel your order during the various phases.
In Figure 2, you can see an example of the trading session of the emini S%P.

It is very important to know the market structure of the instrument you want to trade. The knowledge of trading hours, rules and procedures, the orders supported can impact on your trading performance.