Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Implementation of Variable Price Limits for Grain and Oilseed Contracts


Effective Wednesday, April 30, 2014 for trade date Thursday, May 1, 2014, the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. (CBOT or Exchange) will apply variable price limits for grain and oilseed futures as described below.  Also effective at the same time, the Exchange will remove price limits for all grain and oilseed options.  These amendments were approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on April 18, 2014.
The new futures price limits are shown in the table below and will remain in effect until the first trading day in November 2014.  There shall be no price limits on the current month contract on or after the second business day preceding the first day of the delivery month.  All mini-sized grain and oilseed futures will have the same daily price limits as their corresponding standard-sized futures.
The first reset date would be the first trading day in May based on the following: Daily settlement prices are collected for the July contracts for each of the CBOT grain and oilseed futures products over 45 consecutive trading days before and on the business day prior to April 16th.  Average prices for each contract will be calculated based on the collected settlement prices and then multiplied by seven percent.  The resulting number would be rounded to the nearest 5 cents/bushel for Corn, Soybeans, CBOT SRW Wheat, KC HRW Wheat, and Oat futures; $5/ton for Soybean Meal futures; 0.5 cents/pound for Soybean Oil futures; and $0.05/cwt for Rough Rice futures to determine the new initial price limits for futures.  The second reset date would be the first trading day in November.  The November price limit reset will be determined in a manner similar to the first reset in May.  The only difference would be that December contracts (November contracts for Soybeans and Rough Rice futures) will be observed over 45 consecutive trading days before and on the business day prior to October 16th.
 
Commodity
Current Initial Price Limit
New Initial Price Limit (Effective 5/1/2014)
New Expanded Price Limit (Effective
5/1/2014)
Corn
$0.40/bushel
$0.35/bushel
$0.55/bushel
Soybeans
$0.70/bushel
$1.00/bushel
$1.50/bushel
CBOT Wheat
$0.60/bushel
$0.45/bushel
$0.70/bushel
KC Wheat
$0.60/bushel
$0.50/bushel
$0.75/bushel
Soybean Oil
$0.025/pound
$0.03/pound
$0.045/pound
Soybean Meal
$20/ton
$30/ton
$45/ton
Oats
$0.20/bushel
$0.25/bushel
$0.40/bushel
Rough Rice
$0.50/cwt
$1.10/cwt
$1.65/cwt