Release: 5217-06

For Release: August 14, 2006

CFTC Staff Allows Sydney Futures Exchange’s 1-Day Option Contract Based on the CBOT Mini-Sized Dow Futures Contract to be Offered and Sold in the United States

Washington, D.C. – The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC's) Office of General Counsel issued a no-action letter (No. 06-17) on August 8, 2006, permitting the offer and sale in the United States of the Sydney Futures Exchange Corporation Limited’s (SFE’s) 1-Day Option Contract based on the CBOT Mini-Sized Dow Futures Contract.

The SFE has entered into a license agreement with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) for the provision and use of the CBOT Mini-Sized Dow Futures Contract daily settlement price to cash settle SFE’s 1-Day Option Contract. The CBOT’s Mini-Sized Dow Futures Contract is based on the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index (DJIA). The DJIA is a broad-based price-weighted index of 30 stocks chosen by Dow Jones and Company to reflect different industrial sectors of the economy. Those stocks typically are sector-leading companies that rank among the largest companies in the world by market capitalization.

For information on foreign exchange-traded security index futures contracts pending no-action approval with the CFTC's Office of General Counsel see the Foreign Instrument Approvals & Exemptions Backgrounder at www.cftc.gov/opa/backgrounder/opapart30.htm.

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Last Updated: July 13, 2007