CBOE Europe: CBOE Eyes 24-Hour VIX Futures Trading

County Wicklow, Ireland: The Chicago Board Options Exchange Futures Exchange is planning to extend its preopening session for VIX next year by offering VIX futures volatility trading for 24-hours per day.

“We need to hammer out some of the details which include technology and also some regulatory issues, but we plan to place an electronic hub in London,” said William Brodsky, chairman and ceo of CBOE, in a keynote speech at the CBOE Risk Management Europe conference this morning. “From our conversations, we know there is a tremendous interest in using VIX futures. By placing the hub in London, there will be a great speed advantage and an efficiency advantage.”

The extension of trading hours will allow market participants such as dealers and hedge funds to offset or establish VIX index futures position without time limitations. One of the reasons for the extension by the CBOE is driven by the success of its current early morning VIX index futures session. “We are garnering about 5% of our daily volume during that hour and a half,” added Brodsky.

An official date for the launch has not been set as the exchange’s technology team is currently working on putting the trading extension in place. “We are fortunate that CBOE Command, our state-of-the-art trade engine technology, was developed totally in house. Because we control our own technology, we can program our systems to adapt to different product types and market models, upgrade capacity requirements—and now, institute substantially expanded VIX index futures hours—to accommodate our customers," said Brodsky.