Trading Information

Futures contracts month codes

Standard expiry schedule for future contracts is quarterly (March, June, September, December)

Bloomberg Tickers

Hidden quantities

Trading MX futures allows to input orders under the "Hidden Quantity" format (referred to as "iceberg" orders). Using this facility provides the flexibility to display sequential pre-determined portions of an entire large size order.

Front-end trading platforms

MX contracts are directly accessible for execution through Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who are available to assist market participants by offering service support.

Market participants have the option of choosing their trading terminal application from one of the above-mentioned suppliers or to use a proprietary trading system developed by an approved participant. In all cases, the solution must be certified before implementation by MX who manages the access to SOLA.

Trade management system – TMS

We often hear that the management of back office operations impedes the use of derivatives. The Montréal Exchange has designed Trade Management System (TMS) to allocate trades, manage allocations and set-up agreements between firms.

Once a transaction has been completed through one of the various front-end trading platforms, the position is processed and managed through the TMS system. TMS links the trading platform to CDCC. Thus, TMS facilitates the clearing, back office and risk management operations.

TMS, easy to install on PC, allows users:

• to directly allocate a trade upon execution.
• to break-up a trade for clearing in multiple accounts.
• to correct previously allocated trades.
• to access give-up trades with other clearing members.
• to create give-up agreements between clearing members.
• to view all executed trades by the participant.
• to generate personalized reports (e.g. "give up given", "give-up received" , cleared, executed).
• to generate files for risk management.
• to generate personalized window screens and workspaces.
• to create clearing keys and accounts.
• to export data to Excel or any Microsoft application in order to automate the daily report process.

For more information on TMS, send an email to samsupport@m-x.ca.

Futures trading system – Operating on FIFO basis

Orders are filled according to price and time of the acceptance in the options on futures and futures trading system.

Here are some details:

• When the quantity of the order is increased and if there are other orders at the same price in the central book at the time of the increase, it is treated as a new order. It is preferable to issue a new order for the additional quantity instead of increasing the existing one so that the time priority for the initial quantity is retained.
• When the quantity of the order is decreased, it retains its priority in the system.
• Hidden quantities are time-stamped when they appear in the central order book.
• A stop order is time-stamped when triggered.
• The modification of the account number does not change the order's priority.
• The modification of the validation date does not change the order's priority.

There is no other priority than FIFO on a price/time basis. In all cases, each approved participant is responsible for insuring that, at the same price and time-stamp, it gives priority to client orders over its own professional orders.

Open interest versus open position

Open interest represents the total number of outstanding options or futures contracts that are not closed or delivered on a particular day. A transaction of 100 contracts creates an open interest of 100.

Open position represents the total number of positions opened in a particular contract held by participants. A transaction of 100 contracts creates an open position of 200 if both parties to the trade, the buyer and the seller, are initiating their respective positions for the first time.

Foreign approval of MX contracts

Contracts listed on MX need to be approved for trading by the appropriate domestic regulatory bodies for each market participant.

The products mainly sensitive to this issue are equity, index and ETF derivatives.

Prior to futures trading, verify with your broker or compliance officer if there are any limitations to trading any of the above or other Exchange products within your jurisdiction.