CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – The CME Group based here that oversees the trading of the Rough Rice Futures contract has published a short, two-question survey for rice industry members to complete by Monday, February 22.
The survey is soliciting feedback on two features of the current Rough Rice Futures contract: overnight trading hours and the delivery instrument. At the industry’s request, CME Group is looking into a move from Warehouse Receipts to Shipping Certificates as the delivery instrument for rice purchased through the futures market. Additionally, CME Group is looking to potentially reduce night time trading hours to provide traders a better quality of life without dramatically affecting the trading volume.
John Owen, Louisiana rice farmer and chairman of the USA Rice Futures Contract Working Group, said, “USA Rice’s Working Group has been studying ways to increase the volume of contracts traded and concurrently increase efficiency of the entire trading process.”
Regarding the survey, Owen said, “I think that a move to Shipping Certificates is a logical step in the right direction to update the contract and improve volume performance and convergence in the contract between cash and futures prices.”
All members of the rice industry, particularly those with interest in the rice futures market are encouraged to complete the CME Group survey, found
here.