CME CBOT Terms and Conditions

Last Update October,1st 2019

Introduction

Trade assets denominated in multiple currencies from a single account is convenient as your available funds are not divided among different markets.
You can therefore trade Dollars denominated futures using the same Euro denominated derivatives section of your trading account.

Market Time and Orders

Country	Market	Preopening	Opening	Continuous Trading	Closure	Evening
CME CME-FX	23.45-23.59		00.00-23.00
CME-CBOT	23.45-02.00		02.00-14.45 15.30-20.15

conditional orders, including OCO, are valid until the instrument's expiration
besides the normal orders valid only for the day, you can input multiday orders valid until the instrument's expiration

Directa may revoke all open orders on each instrument at a fixed time. The communication is editable simply by reporting it on the website (usually shortly before trade closes).

Futures Delivery Date

Directa does not manage the possibility of retain and/or delivery the underlying. For those derivatives for which delivery of the underlying is expected on the expiry date (for example Euro FX and Mini Euro-FX) directa will proceed, the last day of trading, with the liquidation on the market of the position of all customers who have not already done it the previous day.

NB: For futures on commodities traded on the CBOT segment (Soybean / soybean, Wheat / common wheat, Corn / corn, Soybean oil) and for those on gold (Gold, Micro Gold), silver (Silver 1000 and 5000), platinum (Platinum) and copper (Copper) the settlement of the position will be brought forward to the penultimate day of the month preceding the expiry date.

Exchange Rate

The "provisional" (with *) Exchange Rate applied in real time to all Profit and Loss of the day is that of ECB of the previous day, the final rate will be the next day's ECB Official Exchange Rate.

Margin

The margin is requested and maintained in Euro, and normally remains fixed (as it happens for the EUREX futures) from the opening of the position to its closing, except in the case of possible and occasional variations, reported with notice normally with a few days advance available on directatrading.com.
e.g. if a margin of 3,000 is needed: the 3,000 are simply withdrawn from your account with a value date of day+1 when the position is opened and returned, also with a value date of day+1, when it is closed, without ever producing any Profit or Loss.

Profit and Loss

The daily Profit and Loss is the difference between the position opening and closing price, or the evening settlement price of the CME, if the position is still open at the end of the day.
Profit and Loss is denominated in Dollars and converted into Euro, initially at the "provisional" rate and then at the "final" official exchange rate, and immediately credited/debited on the trading account.
Profit and Loss for the positions still open at the end of the day are calculated and converted in Euro at the provisional exchange rate the following day before trading opens.
If a position is maintained open for several days, Directa records all Daily Profit and Loss in Euro, so that when the position will be closed, it will be sufficient to add the last Profit and Loss (the result of the difference between the last reference price and the position closing price) to obtain the total Profit and Loss.

Difference between Profit and Loss calculation for Equity and Futures

It is important to understand that the method described above is the only possible way to correctly calculate the Profit and Loss for derivatives in Dollars as in futures trading there is no official purchase/sale price reflected on the trading account that allows to calculate the Profit and Loss from the difference between the position opening and closing price as it happens with US Equities.

e.g.
To understand the difference between equities and futures, just compare the case of a trader who purchases shares for $ 1,000 and then resells them for the same amount, with that another trader who simultaneously opens and close a contract at $ 1,000. These two situations seem identical, but they are quite different.
In the equities trade, even if the opening and closing prices in Dollars are identical, the investor may show a profit or loss according to the exchange rate: if, for example, the Euro denominated cost would have been 800 to purchase and 900 to sell the same 00 trade value, there will be a profit of 0. In the futures trade, on the other hand, there was no real purchase, nor a payment of 800 for the 00 trade value, and the exchange rate is indeed irrelevant.
e.g. if the price would remain unchanged at > ,000, the trade would not produce any Profit and Loss regardless of the possible exchange rate change.

Break-even price

In the case where there is no real purchase in Euros, however, there still is a real "purchase price," it will remain useful to maintain a "book value" denominated in Dollars, to be compared with real-time prices in order to assess the trading position.

For this purpose, Directa provides the so-called "break-even price": the estimated position closing price that would result in a zero Profit and Loss.
Closing the position at a better price than the "breakeven price" will produce a profit equal, or a loss at a worse price, exactly as it happens in equity trading.
Please note that the breakeven price in Dollars may change marginally from day to day according to the exchange rate change.
In the event of partial closure of the trading position, the Profit and Loss accumulated will be applied "pro quota" basis to the closed portion of the trade.

Real-times Quotes

It is possible to receive realtime CME CBOT futures quotes, through the ticker code available on the web trading platform, through you can follow real-time prices on any Directa trading platform.

CME's realtime quotes (with 5 levels market depth) have a cost of $ 15/month.