CME, the largest futures exchange in the United States, announced today that it plans to offer side-by- side open outcry and electronic trading for the majority of its CME FX options on futures.

Beginning December 18, nine CME FX options, with American-style expiration, will be available nearly 23 hours a day on the CME Globex electronic trading platform. The nine options are on: the Euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, Mexican peso and Russian ruble.

To facilitate electronic trading, CME Globex will support mass quoting capabilities for five of the currency options: Euro, yen, pound, franc and Canadian dollar. It will also select firms to commit to provide continuous, transparent and competitive electronic markets for the American-style options.

The CME has offered side-by-side trading of currency options since 2005 when it launched European-style options on CME Euro FX futures and CME Japanese Yen futures. Three additional European-style options, on the British pound, Canadian dollar and Swiss franc, were listed on CME Globex in July.

The CME plans to further expand electronic trading hours for additional CME FX options in 2007. Approximately 90% of CME’s FX volume is electronic.

“Electronic trading has fueled a compound annual growth rate of 34% for the past five years in CME FX products,” said Derek Sammann, managing director, CME Foreign Exchange. “With electronic trading of FX options growing 81% in the third quarter of 2006, we see options as an increasingly important part of our business. Our global customers want the same electronic access to our FX options markets that they have in our futures market. They also want liquid electronic markets across multiple time zones. Expanded electronic trading hours for these nine options is CME’s first step in responding to this need.”