CBOT Upgrades Trading Platform

CHICAGO - Aug 29/05 - SNS -- The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) will upgrade its electronic trading platform on October 9, 2005.

New functionality on the CBOT electronic trading platform will include order book management, to make it easier for firms to oversee all their risk exposure across multiple users. Additionally, stop orders will exist at the host level, expanding the number of order types directly accessible via the CBOT's electronic trading platform, and nine inter-commodity spread strategies for financial products will be added to the system.

As a complement to the upgrade's new functionality, the CBOT will complete the implementation of its North American Trading Host, moving the epicenter of the Exchange's electronic trading platform to Chicago from London.

The CBOT will also expand the number of trading hours on its electronic platform. The initiative will make CBOT's transparent markets for interest rate, equity index and metals products available to electronic market users for an additional hour each day, bringing the trading day to 22 hours.

Also coinciding with the platform upgrade will be a series of changes to the CBOT's transaction fee schedule. The new schedule, which was approved by the CBOT Board of Directors in May, will go into effect on October 1. The full pricing schedule is available on the Exchange website. Click here to go to the pricing schedule.