CME Group announced today that it will be expanding electronic trading hours in the Chicago Board of Trade for grain and oilseed futures.
Starting May 13 for trading day May 14, customers will have 22-hour access to CBOT corn, soybean, wheat, soybean meal and soybean oil futures and options.
The new expanded hours will operate as follows:
- Sunday to Monday, 5 p.m. to 4 p.m. CT
- Monday to Friday, 6 p.m. to 4 p.m. CT
"As we've grown our customer base in agricultural commodities around the globe, we've received increased interest in expanding market access by providing longer trading hours," said Tim Andriesen, managing director of agricultural commodities for CME Group.
Open-outcry trading hours will continue to operate from 9:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. CT Monday to Friday.
Rumors circled the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade on Tuesday after members of the board of CME Group voted 9-1 to go to the 22-hour trading day, said Tom Grisafi of Indiana Grain Company.
Grisafi said the move to a longer day is in part to compete with the longer hours the InterContinental Exchange plans to implement May 14. However, Andriesen said the decision was based on customer demand.
"In particular, customers are looking to manage their price risk in our deep, liquid markets during market-moving events like USDA crop reports," Andriesen said. "In response to customer feedback, we're expanding trading hours for our grain and oilseed products to ensure customers have even greater access to these effective price discovery tools."
What would the proposed hours mean for farmers? The biggest concern Pro Farmer editor Chip Flory has about the change is an open market during USDA report days.
"If the market is open during report times, we will never see push or protection again," he said.
The changes will likely be of greatest concern for farmers who have exposed basis on a report day.
"They are holding the most risk," Flory said.
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