Financial Markets and Institutions (2-downloads)

Financial Futures

The prices for financial futures contracts for debt instru-

ments are published daily. In the 

Wall Street Journal,

these prices are found in the “Commodities” section

Information for each contract is presented in

columns, as follows. (The Chicago Board of Trade’s

contract for delivery of long-term Treasury bonds in

June 2010 is used as an example.)

Open: Opening price; each point corresponds to

$1,000 of face value—123 is $123,000 for the

June contract

High: Highest traded price that day—123 17/32 is

$123,531.25 for the June contract

Low: Lowest traded price that day—122 12/32 is

$122,375.00 for the June contract

Settle: Settlement price, the closing price that day—

122 25/32 is $122,781.25 for the June contract

Chg: Change in the settlement price from the previ-

ous trading day—+3/32 is +$93.75 for the June

contract

Open Interest: Number of contracts outstanding—

719,746 for the June contract, with a face value

of $71.97 billion (719,746 

⫻ $100,000)

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Interest Rate