CBOE Futures Exchange

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CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE)
Founded	2004
Headquarters	Chicago, IL
Key People	William Brodsky, Chairman; Bradley Griffith, Vice Chairman; Edward Joyce, President; Andrew Lowenthal, Managing Director
Products	Futures contracts based on variance and volatility
Web site	http://cfe.cboe.com/

The fully electronic CBOE Futures Exchange, LLC (CFE), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), opened for trading in 2004, with the unique vision of offering futures contracts based on “variance” and on “volatility.” As of November 2007, seven futures contracts were listed for trading, including futures based on CBOE's VIX, CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) futures.

1 Regulation
2 History
3 Full Futures Product Listing
4 Awards
5 Market Activity
- 5.1 2007: Tops one million contract volume
6 Annual Report
7 News
8 References

Regulation

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Unlike the CBOE and the CBOE Stock Exchange (CBSX), both of which are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the CBOE Futures Exchange is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

History

The first CFE futures contract offered in 2004 was based on the CBOE Volatility Index (the VIX), a benchmark of market sentiment to reflect investors’ consensus view of expected stock market volatility (the “investor fear gauge”) over the coming 30 days. Two variance contracts -- CBOE S&P 500 One-month Variance futures and S&P 500 Three-month Variance futures were listed for trading shortly thereafter. (The one-month variance futures contract no longer is offered for trading.)

Full Futures Product Listing

All futures on CFE are traded electronically from 8:30 a.m. - 3:15 p.m. (Chicago time) via CBOEdirect and are cleared at the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC).

Full CFE product specifications^[1], market data ^[2], and other educational resources^[3] are available both on this wiki and on the CFE site.^[4]

Awards

2004 Leader in Futures Innovation for the CBOE Volatility Index Futures (Most Innovative Index Derivative Award): 2004 Super Bowl of Indexing Conference

Market Activity

2007: Tops one million contract volume

In 2007, trading volume on CFE totaled just less than 1.14 million contracts (average daily volume 4,500 contracts), an increase of 138% over 2006 volume of 478,000 contracts, the previous annual high for trading volume. This was the first year that CFE volume topped one million contracts. In 2007, VIX futures, based on the CBOE Volatility Index (ticker VX) accounted for 1.05 million of total annual volume, a 140% increase over 2006.

Open interest at year end stood just under 60,000 contracts, up 65% over the 2006. ^[5]

Annual Report

CBOE Annual Report

News

At mid-year 2008, the CBOE Futures Exchange, LLC (CFE) announced that 2008 year-to-date trading volume was 50% ahead of the same period from a year-ago. Through the end of July 2008, total trading volume at CFE stood at 701,454 contracts traded, compared to 468,317 contracts traded through July 2007, which was a record year at CFE. ^[6]

During March 2008, trading volume on the CBOE Futures Exchange, LLC, totaled 108,812 contracts, an average daily volume of 5,441 contracts. This was an increase of 86% over March 2007 and 34% over February 2008 volume. VIX futures (VX) was most actively traded at the exchange, with 98,351 contracts traded during the month (just more than 4,900 average daily volume), an 82% rise over March 2007 volume and 37% greater than February 2008 volume.^[7]