CME Group to launch spring wheat futures and options on April 14

Published: 2025-03-18 10:44:15 ET CME

CHICAGO, March 18 (Reuters) - CME Group on Tuesday set a launch date of April 14 for its hard red spring wheat futures and options contracts, pending regulatory review.

The contracts will compete directly with a historic Minneapolis spring wheat market now owned by Miami International Holdings.

Like the MIAX futures, the CME's spring wheat futures will be sized at 5,000 bushels and quoted in U.S. cents per bushel, and contract months will be March, May, July, September and December.

CME's futures will be physically delivered using shipping certificates, an exchange spokesperson said. Delivery locations will include the Minneapolis/St. Paul/Red Wing and Duluth/Superior switching districts, and an origin point in the Red River Valley encompassing eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.

CME Group, parent of the Chicago Board of Trade, already operates markets for two other types of U.S. wheat, soft red winter wheat and hard red winter wheat.

Hard red spring wheat was historically traded at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, or MGEX, which launched its signature contract in 1883 to trade the high-quality crop used to make bread and frozen dough products. It has the smallest trading volume of the three U.S. wheat contracts.

Miami International Holdings last year renamed the Minneapolis market as MIAX Futures Exchange after buying MGEX in 2020.

(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen, editing by Deepa Babington)