E-mini

E-minis are futures contracts traded primarily on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's Globex electronic trading platform and on the New York Board of Trade, that represent a fraction of the value of normal futures contracts. E-mini contracts were first launched in 1997 for the S&P 500 index with great success, and are now available on a wide range of stock market indexes, commodities and currencies. As of April, 2011, CME lists 44 unique E-mini contracts, of which approximately 10 have average daily trading volumes of over 1,000 contracts.