CFTC Glossary
A Guide to the Language of the Futures Industry
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Calendar Spread: (1) The purchase of one delivery month of a given futures contract and simultaneous sale of a different delivery month of the same futures contract; (2) the purchase of a put or call option and the simultaneous sale of the same type of option with typically the same strike price but a different expiration date. Also called a horizontal spread or time spread.
Call: (1) An option contract giving the buyer the right but not the obligation to purchase a commodity or other asset or to enter into a long futures position; (2) a period at the opening and the close of some futures markets in which the price for each futures contract is established by auction; or (3) the requirement that a financial instrument be returned to the issuer prior to maturity, with principal and accrued interest paid off upon return. See Buyer’s Call, Seller’s Call.
Call Around Market: A market, commonly used for options on futures on European exchanges, in which brokers contact each other outside of the exchange trading facility to arrange block trades.
Call Cotton: Cotton bought or sold on call. See Buyer’s Call, Seller’s Call.
Called: Another term for exercised when an option is a call. In the case of an option on a physical, the writer of a call must deliver the indicated underlying commodity when the option is exercised or called. In the case of an option on a futures contract, a futures position will be created that will require margin, unless the writer of the call has an offsetting position.
Capping: Effecting transactions in an instrument underlying an option shortly before the option's expiration date to depress or prevent a rise in the price of the instrument so that previously written call options will expire worthless, thus protecting premiums previously received. See Pegging.
Carrying Broker: An exchange member firm, usually a futures commission merchant, through whom another broker or customer elects to clear all or part of its trades.
Carrying Charges: Cost of storing a physical commodity or holding a financial instrument over a period of time. These charges include insurance, storage, and interest on the deposited funds, as well as other incidental costs. It is a carrying charge market when there are higher futures prices for each successive contract maturity. If the carrying charge is adequate to reimburse the holder, it is called a "full charge." See Negative Carry, Positive Carry, and Contango.
Cash Commodity: The physical or actual commodity as distinguished from the futures contract, sometimes called spot commodity or actuals.
Cash Forward Sale: See Forward Contract.
Cash Market: The market for the cash commodity (as contrasted to a futures contract) taking the form of: (1) an organized, self-regulated central market (e.g., a commodity exchange); (2) a decentralized over-the-counter market; or (3) a local organization, such as a grain elevator or meat processor, which provides a market for a small region.
Cash Settlement: A method of settling certain futures or option contracts whereby the seller (or short) pays the buyer (or long) the cash value of the commodity traded according to a procedure specified in the contract. Also called Financial Settlement, especially in energy derivatives.
CCC: See Commodity Credit Corporation.
CD: See Certificate of Deposit.
CEA: Commodity Exchange Act or Commodity Exchange Authority.
CFTC: See Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Certificated or Certified Stocks: Stocks of a commodity that have been inspected and found to be of a quality deliverable against futures contracts, stored at the delivery points designated as regular or acceptable for delivery by an exchange. In grain, called "stocks in deliverable position." See Deliverable Stocks.
Changer: Formerly, a clearing member of both the Mid-America Commodity Exchange (MidAm) and another futures exchange who, for a fee, would assume the opposite side of a transaction on MidAm by taking a spread position between MidAm and the other futures exchange that traded an identical, but larger, contract. Through this service, the changer provided liquidity for MidAm and an economical mechanism for arbitrage between the two markets. MidAm was a subsidiary of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). MidAm was closed by the CBOT in 2003 after all MidAm contracts were delisted on MidAm and relisted on the CBOT as Mini contracts. The CBOT still uses changers for former MidAm contracts that are traded on an open outcry platform.
Charting: The use of graphs and charts in the technical analysis of futures markets to plot trends of price movements, average movements of price, volume of trading, and open interest.
Chartist: Technical trader who reacts to signals derived from graphs of price movements.
Cheapest-to-Deliver: Usually refers to the selection of a class of bonds or notes deliverable against an expiring bond or note futures contract. The bond or note that has the highest implied repo rate is considered cheapest to deliver.
Chooser Option: An exotic option that is transacted in the present, but that at some specified future date is chosen to be either a put or a call option.
Circuit Breakers: A system of coordinated trading halts and/or price limits on equity markets and equity derivative markets designed to provide a cooling-off period during large, intraday market declines. The first known use of the term circuit breaker in this context was in the Report of the Presidential Task Force on Market Mechanisms (January 1988), which recommended that circuit breakers be adopted following the market break of October 1987.
C.I.F: Cost, insurance, and freight paid to a point of destination and included in the price quoted.
Class (of options): Options of the same type (i.e., either puts or calls, but not both) covering the same underlying futures contract or other asset (e.g., a March call with a strike price of 62 and a May call with a strike price of 58).
Clearing Association: See Clearing Organization.
Clearing House: See Clearing Organization.
Clearing Member: A member of a clearing organization. All trades of a non-clearing member must be processed and eventually settled through a clearing member.
Clearing Organization: An entity through which futures and other derivative transactions are cleared and settled. It is also charged with assuring the proper conduct of each contract’s delivery procedures and the adequate financing of trading. A clearing organization may be a division of a particular exchange, an adjunct or affiliate thereof, or a freestanding entity. Also called a clearing house, multilateral clearing organization, or clearing association. See Derivatives Clearing Organization.
Clearing Price: See Settlement Price.
Close: The exchange-designated period at the end of the trading session during which all transactions are considered made "at the close." See Call.
Closing-Out: Liquidating an existing long or short futures or option position with an equal and opposite transaction. Also known as Offset.