The physical trading pits of global derivatives and commodities exchange CME Group that have been closed since last year due to COVID-19 will not reopen, the company announced on 4 May.
However, CME said its Eurodollar options pit, which reopened in August, would remain open. This would allow these contracts to continue to trade in both open outcry and electronic venues.
Open outcry was a popular method for communicating trade orders in trading pits in the past, according to Investopedia. The verbal and hand signal communication used by traders at stock, option and futures exchanges are now rarely used, replaced by faster and more accurate electronic order systems.
Open outcry on benchmark Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) soyabean futures ended in 2015, according to Successful Farming, after it first began in 1936. The CBOT, which was set up in 1848, was one of the world’s oldest futures and options exchanges and merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in 2007 to form the CME group.