E-Mini or Emini

The E-Mini is an electronically traded futures contract which is traded primarily on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's (CME) Globex electronic trading platform and on the New York Board of Trade. The E-Mini is the electronic counterpart to a larger pit traded future. i.e. The E-Mini trades in fractions of the size of the pit traded future.

There are just under fifty unique E-mini contracts now available. At least ten of those have an average daily trading volume of over 1,000 contracts.

The most popular E-Mini contract is the E-Mini S&P500 Index Future. This contract trades at 20% (one fifth) of the size of the pit traded S&P500 Index Future. The E-Mini trades at $50/point while the pit traded goes at $250/point.

Over the last two decades the E-Mini contracts have had a devastating effect on the pit traded contracts. Most of the futures traded volume is now in the E-Mini contracts and many pits have closed down and the future of the remaining pits is bleak.

The E-Mini futures offer some distinct advantages over their pit traded counterparts:

• They are traded on Globex and available for trade almost 24 hours a day Sunday evening through Friday.

• They are traded electronically so there is instant price matching and complete transparency to the depth of market.

• They are traded is smaller values making them more accessible to a larger number of traders which makes them more liquid.