ICE Moves to Electronic Trading, CME May Cut Grain Hours

Options Industry

ICE Moves to Electronic Trading, CME May Cut Grain Hours

Posted October 21st, 2012 by The Options Insider in Industry

On Friday, the The Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE) saw the end of an era when it shut down its old school floor-based trading in its New York soft commodity trading pits after 142 years.

Beginning on Monday, options on futures for the exchange's agricultural products, including sugar and cocoa, will trade electronically. This comes after ICE announced the change back in July.

At the time, Ben Jackson, President of ICE Futures U.S said of the impending change, "The rapid adoption of electronic trading by options market participants is strong validation of the capabilities ICE has built into its electronic trading platform.

Market participants have migrated to electronic trading for options as a result of the functionality, transparency and efficiency of the platform. At the same time, we are pleased to continue to offer the floor facility as a venue for access to these markets to support customer business. We appreciate the input of our market participants and regulators in this process."

In other ICE Futures US news, it will cut trading hours for its raw sugar contracts. Trading will now open one hour later to 0230 NY time.

This will become effective on November 5.

From other futures trading news in the last week, CME is holding informal talks to cut its trading hours for grains traded on CBOT.

Reuters reported that changes are not likely to happen before the year's end. It also noted that CME "sounds like they are amenable" to changing the current closing bell for electronic and open-outcry trading to 1:15 p.m. central time; the current closing time is 2 p.m.

This wouldn't be the first time the markets closed at the 1:15 p.m. time. This was done prior to the exchange extending trading hours.

In a statement by the exchange regarding a possible change, CME said, "We regularly talk with customers and market participants about ways to enhance our markets. We don't have anything new to add on hours."