I am new to these instruments, on the Russell 2000 i see close-out is this friday, when do traders start trading the March06 contract?

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Originally posted by ALSI

I am new to these instruments, on the Russell 2000 i see close-out is this friday, when do traders start trading the March06 contract?

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last week. as you can see, March volume is already ramped up:

http://www.cme.com/html.wrap/wrappedpages/end_of_day/daily_settlement_prices/er2.html?h=1

hth

take care :)

omni

Thanks,
So as a rule of thumb switch to the next contract the week preceding the close-out week.

You normally switch to the next contract 8 days before expiry. Expiry is usually on a Friday and so the switch day (which is known as rollover day) is on a Thursday 8 days before that.

There's a whole ton of info here about rollover day:
http://www.deltat1.com/Education/articles/Rollover/rollover.htm

Hope that helps.