Thursday, December 9, 2010 was the start of stock index futures roll-over at both CME Group and ICE Futures U.S.

Tracking the Pace of the RollRollover is when a new contract month becomes the dominant contract in terms of new volume, for both pit (open outcry) and electronic trading sessions. For stock index futures, rollover officially begins one week before the expiration of the nearest contract. So today, the section of the trading floor pits previously devoted to trading December contracts is now trading March 2010, and the December indices are moved to the back, or smaller section of the pit. On the trading floor, March is now referred to as the front month insofar as stock index futures trading is concerned. We dont have quite the same issue with electronic platforms, so the Globex and ICE platforms rollover is more symbolic. as we will now see day-traders increasingly focusing more of their trading in the March contracts and position traders start unwinding December positions and re-establishing them in the March.

Both CME Group and ICE now report what is referred to as the Pace of the Roll available online. Russell Indices rollover can be tracked at a special page at the ICE Website.

S&P, Nasdaq, Dow, Midcap 400 & Nikkei 225 changes in December/March volume and open interest in both tabular and graphic format are found at the CME Group website.

• Monitor the pace at which open interest is migrating to the back month.
• View the richness or cheapness of calendar spread trades.
• View intraday pricing charts on key contracts.

(CME Group offers a How-To Guide at their website. This step by step PDF guide will walk you through the various functionality within the Equity Quarterly Roll Analyzer tool found at the CME Group website.)

TRADING FUTURES, OPTIONS ON FUTURES AND FOREX IS SPECULATIVE IN NATURE AND INVOLVES SUBSTANTIAL RISK OF LOSS. ALL KNOWN NEWS AND EVENTS HAVE ALREADY BEEN FACTORED INTO THE PRICE OF THE UNDERLYING COMMODITIES DISCUSSED

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Im Matthew Zaner, President & CEO of Zaner Group LLC and I am proud of the services we are able to provide to our clients worldwide. During the past three decades, we have enjoyed significant growth and expanded our product offerings as our client base increased. Today, Zaner can help you achieve your monetary goals in very diverse financial sectors, including the futures, options and foreign exchange markets.

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DISCLAIMER:

Trading futures, off-exchange retail foreign currency (fx) and options involves substantial risk of loss and may not be suitable for all people. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. Opinions are subject to change at any time, and are not a solicitation or recommendation to buy or sell commodity futures or commodity options. Past performance is not indicative of future results.