"What Time Shall We Open The Shop, Mavis?"

05/03/13 -- "Oh, I don't really know Rita." CME Group, the self-acclaimed world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, are at it AGAIN you will be staggered to hear. I kid you not. If further evidence was needed that this lot are about as much use as tits on a snake then here it is.

Starting Apr 8th (they really should think about bringing it forward a week, for maximum comic value, I'd suggest), they are buggering about with the trading hours yet again. Seriously.

The new trading times are these (based on UK times): Electronic trading takes place Mon-Fri midnight to 12.45pm. After that we can all go for a cup of tea and an Eccles cake, or five pints of lager and a pork pie, depending on your personal preference and internal capacity. Both the electronic and the open outcry session will then start at 13.30pm and trade until 18.15pm, then both markets will shut. That's a 17 1/2 hour trading day as opposed to the current 21 hours.

There's no word yet whether the USDA will now rethink their recently ammended strategy of issuing important reports such as Friday's upcoming WASDE during trading hours, or maybe switch to something like a 13.00pm release time to give the trade half an hour to digest the numbers first.

I bet their staff Christmas parties must be shite. A quarter bottle of Lambrini and a 70's disco, wooohooo, oops upside your head, I said oops upside your head. Do you think me bum looks big in these flares? And they called it Puppy Loooohuhuhuve....oh I guess they'll never know....