The president of the American Soybean Association says he has concerns about the expanded trading hours at the Chicago Board of Trade.
The new trading hours will be from 5 p.m. to 2 p.m. Central time, Sunday through Friday. They go into effect this Sunday (May 20).
ASA president Steve Wellman of Syracuse, Nebraska says there is still confusion about how the expanded trading hours will coexist with the release of USDA reports on grains and oilseeds.
“Having the major USDA reports released during trade hours, I think, does open up possibly having inaccurate price discovery happening during trading,” says Wellman.
Another concern, Wellman says, is that there is already unequal access to USDA information based on differing Internet capacity across the country and around the world. He says differing abilities to place orders in reaction to reports released during trading hours will create, what he calls, “inequitable opportunities for market participants”.
“There’s going to be inequities in how the reports are received by traders and then there’s also unequal abilities of the traders to look through the information, digest the information, react to it, and make trades,” he says.
Wellman hopes the USDA will consider releasing those reports when trading is not in session.
AUDIO: Steve Wellman (3:51 MP3)
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