About CME Asia-Pacific Seasonal Weather Futures

Intra-day block trades
Performance bonds (margins)

To provide opportunities for businesses in the Pacific Rim to better manage the risks they face due to weather-related factors, CME has developed its first Pacific Rim Index Weather Futures: new monthly and seasonal weather contracts for the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Osaka. Scheduled for launch on July 26, these products are the first exchange-listed weather futures and options created for Asian markets.

Japanese cities
Toyko (WMO 47662)	Osaka (WMO 47772)

The Japanese contracts are based on average daily temperatures in degrees Celsius and will settle to the Pacific Rim Index compiled by Earth Satellite Corporation (EarthSat), which has provided CME Weather data since 1999. Average daily temperatures are based on the average of hourly temperatures accumulated over a 24-hour period. Monthly contracts reflect the average of daily average temperatures over a calendar month; seasonal contracts reflect the average of daily average temperatures over the months covered by the contract.

The Japanese contracts are slightly different from CME’s U.S. and European weather contracts, in that:

• The Pacific Rim Index measures the average daily temperatures, In contrast, the Heating/Cooling Degree Day and Cumlative Average Temperature Indexes used for U.S. and European weather futures measure temperature deviations from 65 degrees Fahrenheit for U.S. cities and 18 degrees Celsius for European cities.
• The Japanese contracts are denominated in Japanese yen and sized at ¥250,000 times the respective Pacific Rim Index for each city.
• The minimum tick is .01.
• The two seasonal contracts – Summer (July through September) and Winter (December through March) – are listed under the same product code, instead of two codes, since both are geared to the same index, the Pacific Rim Index.

The Pacific Rim weather futures contracts will trade at the same time as CME’s other weather futures on the CME® Globex® electronic trading platform from 5:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. Chicago time the following day. Options on all CME weather futures are traded on CME’s trading floor from 8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.

Wolverine Trading, LLC, a leading energy trading firm that serves as lead market maker for CME’s other weather contracts, will also serve as lead market maker on the Japanese contracts.