E-minis are
futures contract
In finance, a futures contract (sometimes called futures) is a standardized legal contract to buy or sell something at a predetermined price for delivery at a specified time in the future, between parties not yet known to each other. The item tr ...
s that represent a fraction of the value of standard futures. They are traded primarily on the
Chicago Mercantile Exchange
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) (often called "the Chicago Merc", or "the Merc") is an American derivatives marketplace based in Chicago and located at 20 S. Wacker Drive. The CME was founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board ...
. As of April, 2011, CME lists 44 unique E-mini contracts,
of which approximately 10 have average daily trading volumes of over 1,000 contracts.
Some E-mini contracts provide trading advantages, including high liquidity, greater affordability for individual investors due to lower
margin
Margin may refer to:
Physical or graphical edges
*Margin (typography), the white space that surrounds the content of a page
* Continental margin, the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust
*Leaf ...
requirements than the full-size contracts, and round-the-clock trading 23.25 hours a day from Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon. Under U.S. tax law, E-minis may qualify as
1256 Contracts, and benefit from several tax advantages as well.
The risk of loss is also amplified by the higher leverage.
Symbology
Most E-mini futures expire quarterly (with the exception of agricultural products), in March, June, September, and December. An E-mini future symbol is formed by starting with the root symbol and adding the expiration month letter (the same as for
futures) and the last digit of the expiration year. For example, the
E-mini S&P 500 expiring in December 2012 has the symbol ESZ2.
E-mini contracts
The table below lists some of the more popular E-mini contracts, with the initial and maintenance margins required by CME.
Note that individual brokers may require different margin amounts (also called
performance bonds).
E-mini options
Options on E-minis exist for the E-mini S&P 500 and the E-mini NASDAQ-100.
See also
*
E-mini S&P
*
E-micro
*
Dow futures
*
NASDAQ futures
NASDAQ futures are financial Futures contract, futures which launched on June 21, 1999. It is the financial contract futures that allow an investor to hedge with or speculate on the future value of various components of the NASDAQ market index.
Se ...
*
S&P futures
*
1256 Contract
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:E-Mini
Derivatives (finance)