I honestly can't make heads or tails of this notice from the CME. I am a newbie but I can't believe I'm having such a difficult time understanding this... Can someone translate this into plain English one trading hour? 3:30 PM to 4:30 pm? or is this the shut down period. No, wait! shut down period is 4:30 to 5:00. but wait... if that's the shut down period then what's going on 3:30 to 4:30? I just don't get it! I sent the CME help desk an email. Let's see if they respond. Complete web page here: http://snurl.com/1x284
Looks to me that the trading day 'ends' at 3:15 PM. In other words, if you make a trade anytime up to 3:15 PM on a Tuesday, then it will close on Tuesday. Then, they have a 15 minute period of downtime, and at 3:30 PM on Tuesday, for example, they will open the trading for the start of the Wednesday session (which will run from 3:30 PM Tuesday until 3:15 PM Wednesday, with a 30 minute period of daily downtime from 4:30 to 5 PM). That's how it reads to me. Best of luck.
Since the CME is Chicago based, the info the site is posted in CST if I am not mistaken. They should have some sort of label somewhere telling you that though. I agree about the confusion though... some of the CME webpages have a little to be desired.