E

Ease Off: A minor and/or slow decline in the price of a market.

ECN: Electronic Communications Network, frequently used for creating electronic stock or futures markets.

Economically Deliverable Supply: That portion of the deliverable supply of a commodity that is in position for delivery against a futures contract, and is not otherwise unavailable for delivery. For example, Treasury bonds held by long-term investment funds are not considered part of the economically deliverable supply of a Treasury bond futures contract.

Efficient Market: In economic theory, an efficient market is one in which market prices adjust rapidly to reflect new information. The degree to which the market is efficient depends on the quality of information reflected in market prices. In an efficient market, profitable arbitrage opportunities do not exist and traders cannot expect to consistently outperform the market unless they have lower-cost access to information that is reflected in market prices or unless they have access to information before it is reflected in market prices. See Random Walk.

EFP: See Exchange for Physical.

Electronic Trading Facility: A trading facility that operates by an electronic or telecommunications network instead of a trading floor and maintains an automated audit trail of transactions.

Eligible Commercial Entity: An eligible contract participant or other entity approved by the CFTC that has a demonstrable ability to make or take delivery of an underlying commodity of a contract; incurs risks related to the commodity; or is a dealer that regularly provides risk management, hedging services, or market-making activities to entities trading commodities or derivative agreements, contracts, or transactions in commodities.

Eligible Contract Participant: An entity, such as a financial institution, insurance company, or commodity pool, that is classified by the Commodity Exchange Act as an eligible contract participant based upon its regulated status or amount of assets. This classification permits these persons to engage in transactions (such as trading on a derivatives transaction execution facility) not generally available to non-eligible contract participants, i.e., retail customers.

Elliot Wave: (1) A theory named after Ralph Elliot, who contended that the stock market tends to move in discernible and predictable patterns reflecting the basic harmony of nature and extended by other technical analysts to futures markets; (2) in technical analysis, a charting method based on the belief that all prices act as waves, rising and falling rhythmically.

E-Local: A person with trading privileges at an exchange with an electronic trading facility who trades electronically (rather than in a pit or ring) for his or her own account, often at a trading arcade.

E-Mini: A mini contract that is traded exclusively on an electronic trading facility. E-Mini is a trademark of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Emergency: Any market occurrence or circumstance which requires immediate action and threatens or may threaten such things as the fair and orderly trading in, or the liquidation of, or delivery pursuant to, any contracts on a contract market.

Enumerated Agricultural Commodities: The commodities specifically listed in Section 1a(3) of the Commodity Exchange Act: wheat, cotton, rice, corn, oats, barley, rye, flaxseed, grain sorghums, mill feeds, butter, eggs, Solanum tuberosum (Irish potatoes), wool, wool tops, fats and oils (including lard, tallow, cottonseed oil, peanut oil, soybean oil, and all other fats and oils), cottonseed meal, cottonseed, peanuts, soybeans, soybean meal, livestock, livestock products, and frozen concentrated orange juice.

Equity: As used on a trading account statement, refers to the residual dollar value of a futures or option trading account, assuming it was liquidated at current prices.

Euro: The official currency of most members of the European Union.

Eurocurrency: Certificates of Deposit (CDs), bonds, deposits, or any capital market instrument issued outside of the national boundaries of the currency in which the instrument is denominated (for example, Eurodollars, Euro-Swiss francs, or Euroyen).

Eurodollars: U.S. dollar deposits placed with banks outside the U.S. Holders may include individuals, companies, banks, and central banks.

European Option: An option that may be exercised only on the expiration date. See American Option.

Even Lot: A unit of trading in a commodity established by an exchange to which official price quotations apply. See Round Lot.

Exchange: A central marketplace with established rules and regulations where buyers and sellers meet to trade futures and options contracts or securities. Exchanges include designated contract markets and derivatives transaction execution facilities.

Exchange for Physicals (EFP): A transaction in which the buyer of a cash commodity transfers to the seller a corresponding amount of long futures contracts, or receives from the seller a corresponding amount of short futures, at a price difference mutually agreed upon. In this way, the opposite hedges in futures of both parties are closed out simultaneously. Also called Exchange of Futures for Cash, AA (against actuals), or Ex-Pit transactions.

Exchange of Futures for Cash: See Exchange for Physicals.

Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS): A privately negotiated transaction in which a position in a physical delivery futures contract is exchanged for a cash-settled swap position in the same or a related commodity, pursuant to the rules of a futures exchange. See Exchange for Physicals.

Exchange Rate: The price of one currency stated in terms of another currency.

Exchange Risk Factor: The delta of an option as computed daily by the exchange on which it is traded.

Excluded Commodity: In general, the Commodity Exchange Act defines an excluded commodity as: any financial instrument such as a security, currency, interest rate, debt instrument, or credit rating; any economic or commercial index other than a narrow-based commodity index; or any other value that is out of the control of participants and is associated with an economic consequence. See the Commodity Exchange Act definition of excluded commodity.

Exempt Board of Trade: A trading facility that trades commodities (other than securities or securities indexes) having a nearly inexhaustible deliverable supply and either no cash market or a cash market so liquid that any contract traded on the commodity is highly unlikely to be susceptible to manipulation. An exempt board of trade’s contracts must be entered into by parties that are eligible contract participants.

Exempt Commercial Market: An electronic trading facility that trades exempt commodities on a principal-to-principal basis solely between persons that are eligible commercial entities.

Exempt Commodity: The Commodity Exchange Act defines an exempt commodity as any commodity other than an excluded commodity or an agricultural commodity. Examples include energy commodities and metals.

Exempt Foreign Firm: A foreign firm that does business with U.S. customers only on foreign exchanges and is exempt from registration under CFTC regulations based upon compliance with its home country’s regulatory framework (also known as a “Rule 30.10 firm”).

Exercise Price (Strike Price): The price, specified in the option contract, at which the underlying futures contract, security, or commodity will move from seller to buyer.

Exotic Options: Any of a wide variety of options with non-standard payout structures or other features, including Asian options and lookback options. Exotic options are mostly traded in the over-the-counter market.

Expiration Date: The date on which an option contract automatically expires; the last day an option may be exercised.

Extrinsic Value: See Time Value.

Ex-Pit: See Transfer Trades and Exchange for Physicals.