Implementation of Variable Price Limits for Grain and Oilseed Contracts

Effective Wednesday, April 30, 2014 for trade date Thursday, May 1, 2014, the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. (CBOT or Exchange) will apply variable price limits for grain and oilseed futures as described below.  Also effective at the same time, the Exchange will remove price limits for all grain and oilseed options.  These amendments were approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on April 18, 2014.

The new futures price limits are shown in the table below and will remain in effect until the first trading day in November 2014.  There shall be no price limits on the current month contract on or after the second business day preceding the first day of the delivery month.  All mini-sized grain and oilseed futures will have the same daily price limits as their corresponding standard-sized futures.

The first reset date would be the first trading day in May based on the following: Daily settlement prices are collected for the July contracts for each of the CBOT grain and oilseed futures products over 45 consecutive trading days before and on the business day prior to April 16th.  Average prices for each contract will be calculated based on the collected settlement prices and then multiplied by seven percent.  The resulting number would be rounded to the nearest 5 cents/bushel for Corn, Soybeans, CBOT SRW Wheat, KC HRW Wheat, and Oat futures; $5/ton for Soybean Meal futures; 0.5 cents/pound for Soybean Oil futures; and $0.05/cwt for Rough Rice futures to determine the new initial price limits for futures.  The second reset date would be the first trading day in November.  The November price limit reset will be determined in a manner similar to the first reset in May.  The only difference would be that December contracts (November contracts for Soybeans and Rough Rice futures) will be observed over 45 consecutive trading days before and on the business day prior to October 16th.

The effected products and the related CBOT Rulebook chapters are listed below:

Corn:

Corn Futures (Rulebook Chapter 10)

Options on Corn Futures (Rulebook Chapter 10A)

Mini-Sized Corn Futures (Rulebook Chapter 10B)

Corn Calendar Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 10J)

Wheat-Corn Intercommodity Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 10N)

Soybean:

Soybean Futures (Rulebook Chapter 11)

Options on Soybean Futures (Rulebook Chapter 11A)

Mini-Sized Soybean Futures (Rulebook Chapter 11B)

Soybean Board Crush Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 11C)

Soybean Calendar Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 11E)

Soybean Oil:

Soybean Oil Futures (Rulebook Chapter 12)

Options on Soybean Oil Futures (Rulebook Chapter 12A)

Soybean Oil Calendar Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 12B)

Soybean Meal:

Soybean Meal Futures (Rulebook Chapter 13)

Options on Soybean Meal Futures (Rulebook Chapter 13A)

Soybean Meal Calendar Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 13B)

CBOT Wheat:

Wheat Futures (Rulebook Chapter 14)

Options on Wheat Futures (Rulebook Chapter 14A)

Mini-Sized Wheat Futures (Rulebook Chapter 14B)

Wheat Calendar Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 14D)

KC Wheat:

MGEX-CBOT Wheat Intercommodity Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 14E)

KCBT-CBOT Wheat Intercommodity Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 14F)

KC HRW Wheat Futures (Rulebook Chapter 14H)

MGEX-KC HRW Wheat Intercommodity Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 14K)

Options on Contracts of Sale on KC Hard Red Winter Wheat Futures (Rulebook Chapter 14L)

KC HRW Wheat Calendar Spread Options (Rulebook Chapter 14M)

Oat:

Oat Futures (Rulebook Chapter 15)

Options on Oat Futures (Rulebook Chapter 15A)

Rough Rice:

Rough Rice Futures (Rulebook Chapter 17)

Options on Rough Rice Futures (Rulebook Chapter 17A)

If you require any additional information, please contact Randy Shao at 312-648-3795 or via e-mail at Renyuan.Shao@cmegroup.com; Fred Seamon at 312-634-1587 or via e-mail at Fred.Seamon@cmegroup.com; or Dave Lehman at 312-930-1875 or via e-mail at David.Lehman@cmegroup.com.