CBOT Launches Its Newly Enhanced Premier Electronic Trading Platform

CBOT Launches Its Newly Enhanced Premier Electronic Trading Platform

Chicago, IL, October 12, 2005 – The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT®) announced today that it has successfully launched its newly enhanced electronic trading platform, e-cbot, powered by LIFFE CONNECT®, by introducing a major API upgrade.

CBOT Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Bryan Durkin said, “After months of programming and testing, we are happy to introduce an upgraded version that builds upon the outstanding throughput and performance of the e-cbot platform. The upgrade includes new functionalities as requested by the marketplace and technical enhancements that expand global access to CBOT products, which are collectively intended to build further liquidity across all product categories. I want to thank the independent software vendors, our member firms, Atos Euronext Market Solutions and our dedicated internal project teams for their cooperation during the development and implementation phases and for helping us make this rollout a success.”

Enhancement Highlights:

Order book management - Enhances firms’ ability to oversee the entirety of their risk exposure across multiple users.
Stop orders – Expands the number of order types directly accessible via the CBOT’s electronic trading platform.
Inter-commodity spreads – Adds spread strategies for nine financial products.
Additional options spreads – Provides more flexibility and opportunities for trading options.
The technical enhancements also improves the platform’s order message processing by streamlining the flow of data at the host level both from an order transmission and market data processing perspective. Market users now have greater abilities to manage the market data they receive from the Exchange and customize the information that enters their gateway.

New Electronic Trading Hours Take Effect and Host to Move from London to Chicago.

In connection with the upgrade, the CBOT’s expanded trading schedule for its electronic trading platform took effect on October 9 and increased the number of trading hours by one hour from 21 to 22 per day. To view the new schedule, please visit our web site at www.cbot.com. The CBOT will also complete the implementation of its North American Trading Host, moving the epicenter of the Exchange’s electronic trading platform to Chicago from London later this month.