CHICAGO, March 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced it plans to make equity index futures trading more accessible to active traders through the launch of Micro E-mini futures on the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Russell 2000 and Dow Jones Industrial Average indexes.

The new Micro E-mini contracts will be one-tenth the size of CME Group's existing E-mini futures on the respective equity indexes. They will be available for trading in May 2019.

"Futures trading has been growing in popularity for active traders all over the world," said Tim McCourt, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products. "The smaller contract size of Micro E-mini equity index futures will make it easier to more nimbly execute a variety of equity trading strategies, while benefiting from the deep liquidity that CME Group markets offer around the clock."

"Equities are well-known and popular futures contracts among our customers," said Steven Sanders, Executive Vice President Marketing and Product Development at Interactive Brokers. "This smaller sized contract is a next-generation product for the next generation of individual, sophisticated traders."

"Today, futures might be a great tool for sophisticated, self-directed traders," said J.B. Mackenzie, Managing Director of Futures and Forex at TD Ameritrade. "The Micro E-mini futures can be a good match for those self-directed active traders who want more product choices within their overall portfolio."

"This is a significant development for customers looking to benefit from capital efficiencies in trading futures," said Daniel Ryba, Vice President of futures at E*TRADE Financial. "These smaller products can allow sophisticated traders to participate in the nearly 24/7 futures market â€”it's an exciting announcement for the industry and its participants."   

"Market-moving events often happen outside of U.S. trading hours, when the stock markets are closed," said Nick LaMaina, Senior Vice President Strategic Brokerage Services at TradeStation Securities, Inc. "This coupled with the smaller contract size of the new Micro E-mini futures means that more investors around the world will be able to gain exposure to benchmark U.S. equity indexes."

More active traders are participating in the futures market than ever before. In 2018, CME Group's non-institutional trading business grew 27 percent compared to the previous year, with active traders averaging 660,000 contracts each day. Globally, active trader participation in CME Group markets grew 30 percent in Asia and 36 percent in Europe last year.

Pending regulatory review, Micro E-mini equity index futures will be listed with and subject to the rules of CME and CBOT. For more information on how to get started with trading futures, including free educational resources like a trading simulator and daily market commentary videos, please visit cmegroup.com/microeminis.

As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.  With a range of pre- and post-trade products and services underpinning the entire lifecycle of a trade, CME Group also offers optimization and reconciliation services through TriOptima, and trade processing services through Traiana.

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec, EBS, TriOptima, and Traiana are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD, EBS Group LTD, TriOptima AB, and Traiana, Inc., respectively.  Dow Jones, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and S&P are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and S&P/Dow Jones Indices LLC, as the case may be, and have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

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SOURCE CME Group