CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced expanded access to its CME Eurodollar liquidity pool by offering Bundle futures and options on Bundle futures. Contracts will be available starting September 22, 2014, pending CFTC review.
The new contracts will complement the existing suite of Eurodollar contracts and Eurodollar Packs and Bundles. Introduced in 1994, the Eurodollar Bundle enables the simultaneous sale or purchase of one each of a series of consecutive Eurodollar contracts, leaving the user with a strip of individual Eurodollar futures positions. The new Bundle futures provide the same economic exposure, through a single line item instead of a strip of contracts. Bundle futures and options will be available through the CME Globex electronic trading platform, open outcry, and block trading, and will be available in 2-year, 3-year and 5-year tenors.
“Bundle futures and options provide market participants with access to a broad participant pool, deep liquidity, operational simplicity, and price transparency via a single line item for longer term interest rates with same total notional size of an OTC contract.” said Sean Tully, Senior Managing Director of Interest Rates and OTC Products. “With margin levels and capital charges increasing for bilateral OTC products, options on Bundle Futures serve the needs of clients seeking a highly liquid, standardized, and cost-effective alternative.”
CME Bundle futures will allow market participants to trade multiple years of short-term interest rate risk exposure at a single price, with a single instrument, with prices quoted in IMM index or ‘100 minus average rate’ terms familiar to users of Eurodollar futures. Bundle futures and options will be listed on and subject to the rules and regulations of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
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