As shown further below, there are different trading times for CME Corn Futures ZC Regular contract/5K bushels YC MINY contract/1K bushels Does anyone have any view on The WHYs & The IMPLICATIONS ? Is the ZC closing price understood as the "real" price for CME corn futures, ie is the MINY YC longer session is generally ignored by most Corn analysts, or not ? ZC: Sunday – Friday, 7:00 p.m. – 7:45 a.m. CT and Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 1:20 p.m. CT TAS: Sunday - Friday 7:00 p.m. - 7:45 a.m. and Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 1:15 p.m. CT YC: Sunday - Friday, 7:00 p.m. - 7:45 a.m. CT and Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 1:45 p.m. CT [ I did email this question to agriculture@cmegroup.com a few weeks ago, but no response received ]
Call them on the phone and ask them. Stop relying on e-mail and texts and stuff. You'll get a much faster response.
@CharlesS I managed to get a hold of a Grain rep over there. Name was Candice or something. I asked her the question you posed, regarding the different end-of-trade times between ZC and YC and she said she had no idea. She said she would research it and get back to me as soon as she had an answer.
@CharlesS s I totally forgot about this thread, only saw it today when it was bumped. That lady from the CME never did get back to me. If you are really interested, start your own dialogue with them and follow-up.
Hi Charles. In 1996 - 2001 or so I clerked and executed hedges for a group of locals who made markets on options. At the time the minis traded in the Mid-American exchange with longer hours. Essentially if a floor local in the options pit went long or short a position right at the close and couldn't hedge in the regular futures pit we had around a half hour or so and do the math and enter a corresponding order at the Mid-Am. This was all before electric trading the and launch of the mega algorithms that replaced everyone in the pit but it was some rationale for the longer hours in the mini as the options stopped and the overnight risk needed to be hedged.
caroy, interesting -- this has been going on for a long time and has enabled late hedges, presumably still doing so. Funny, I sometimes do the same for equities, wrt the 15h00 CST options close vs. 15h00-15h15 globex & then thru after-hours. Is it your impression that the origin of the difference is simply that the CME & Mid-America did not try to, or were not able to, reconcile their closing times wrt CORN ? Do you recall if the MINY close was ignored by those trading on DAY and longer term charts ? Even ignored by those trading MINYs only ? w/ the MINY trading now for a long time at CME (?), I wonder why CME has maintained the difference.
I would think the benefit to the option market makers and locals being able to hedge their positions and that of other spreaders and futures locals kept it as a reality. I would imagine to some extent the later close in the minis still fills this role.