CME announces plans to offer 24/7 WTI oil and gold contracts

The Chicago Mercantile Group announced plans to offer 24-hour, seven-days-a-week trading in new, smaller crude oil futures and its existing gold contract, the exchange said Thursday. 

The new oil-linked contract, set to be one-tenth the size of the existing Micro WTI futures contract, will debut Aug. 30, according to the release. 24/7 trading in 1-ounce gold futures will begin July 26. The oil and gold contracts, which are still pending regulatory review, will be cash-settled and listed on NYMEX and COMEX, respectively. 

The move comes amid the growing popularity of 24/7 trading in venues such as Hyperliquid, where volumes in oil-linked products have surged as the Iran war whipsaws energy markets. Bloomberg reported earlier that Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and the CME were pressing US regulators to rein in the offshore venue. 

Binance, another platform that operates outside the US, also recently began to offer around-the-clock commodity trading. 

(By Mia Gindis)