CME Group, the world’s largest and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced the launch of cleared over-the-counter (OTC) swaps on the S&P GSCI® Crude Oil Excess Return and the S&P GSCI Gold Excess Return Indices, as well as Forward contracts for the S&P GSCI Excess Return Index, all scheduled to begin trading November 2.
Clearing will be available through CME ClearPort®, a set of flexible clearing services open to (OTC) market participants to substantially mitigate counterparty risk and provide neutral settlement prices across asset classes. These contracts are listed by CME for clearing only through CME ClearPort, and are subject to CME rules and regulations.
The S&P GSCI indexes, published and maintained by S&P Indices, are publicly available commodity benchmarks representing the major commodity sectors, including energy, metals, and agriculture. The crude oil, gold and commodity excess return indexes reflect the returns generated by "rolling" the underlying futures contracts in addition to the value of the commodities represented by the index. The new swaps and forward offerings give market participants another venue for managing price risk related to crude oil, gold and the broadly diversified S&P GSCI.