The original Coffee Exchange of the City of New York
was founded in 1882 to deal in futures contracts for Brazilian arabica. The New
York Board of Trade or NYBOT, was established in 1998 as the parent company of
the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange (CSCE) and the New York Cotton Exchange
(NYCE).
Today's 'C' contract or NYKC, covers mild arabica
coffee and currently allows delivery of coffee from 19 producing countries. Some
of these coffees are traded at basis price while others are traded at
differentials above or below the basis price - see 08.04.02.
In January 2007 the New
York Board of Trade merged with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE - www.theice.com),
resulting in the introduction on February 2nd 2007 of the electronic trading of
six NYBOT soft commodity futures contracts, including arabica coffee, alongside
the existing open outcry trading.
Open outcry trading was halted early 2008 since when
all Futures and Against Actuals or AA transactions* are carried out
electronically. Options however trade side by side, i.e. both electronically and
through open outcry. The electronic trading hours for options are the same as
for futures but open outcry trading of options only operates from 08.00 hours to
13.30 hours New York time.*
* See topic 08.04.01 for electronic trading hours.