A Documentative Look at Contract Approvals, Launches, and Successes in U. S. Futures Markets

This paper uses data on current volume and contracts approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to document the history of approvals, launches, and successes of all contracts in U. S. futures and futures options markets. Over 1,100 futures and options contracts have been approved and almost 900 have been launched. About 59 percent of futures contracts and about 73 percent of options that have been launched no longer trade. Not surprisingly the two largest (and now merged) exchanges, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, have been the most assertive in securing approval and ultimately launching their contracts, but about 60 percent of the CME's launched contracts and about 74 percent of the CBT's launched contracts no longer trade. Futures contracts on financial instruments have been the most successful futures, but options on financial futures have been the least successful options. For individual underlyings, energy and currency contracts have had the highest success rates at about 63 and 51 percent. For exchanges with at least 20 launches, the most successful in launching futures has been the New York Cotton Exchange, while the most successful in launching options has been the New York Mercantile Exchange. We also examine 13 fourteen cases in which competing products were launched nearly simultaneously and find no clear-cut winner in head-to-head competition as in the majority of cases, both contracts failed