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Round-the-clock trading is coming to the WTI crude oil and Gold futures market on the CME group’s trading platform, the company has announced. This move is intended to give traders an option to react to market moving events 24/7, even outside traditional trading hours. The futures and derivatives exchange operator has stated that its existing 1-ounce gold futures will start to trade every hour of every day on July 26. A new 10-barrel WTI crude oil contract, which is one-tenth the size of its current Micro WTI futures, will then follow with an August 30 launch. Both of the new products are still subject to regulatory approval.
Gold trades under COMEX rules, while the new crude oil product will be listed on NYMEX, CME Group’s energy exchange, and all the newly created contracts are cash-settled.
Resizing contracts for easier access
The newly created 10-barrel crude oil contract was launched to drop the barrier to entry for low liquidity traders who find standard-sized futures too large for their portfolios.
CME Group’s options on WTI crude hit a record average daily volume of 320,000 contracts in the first quarter of 2026, according to the company’s announcement. WTI crude oil still remains the global benchmark to assess crude oil pricing globally.
In addition, the demand for smaller crude contracts has also risen . Micro WTI futures saw a total of 272,000 contracts per day in May 2026, which represents a 317% jump from the demand in May 2025, according to data from the CME Group.
On the other hand, gold’s 1-ounce contract launched on the platform in January 2025 and has seen almost 90,000 contracts per day in 2026. CME Group’s gold benchmark products accrue almost $100 billion in total value traded every day, the company stated.
Geopolitical uncertainty and conflict drive expansion
Derek Sammann, CME Group’s senior managing director and global head of commodities markets, has pointed to geopolitical risk as the motivation behind the 24/7 expansion of these contracts.
“Traders are increasingly looking to diversify their portfolios across commodity markets in the face of geopolitical uncertainty,” Sammann said, according to the company’s press release. “Our new WTI and Gold futures provide regulated products that are right-sized and available 24/7, ensuring traders can manage exposure whenever news breaks.”
The move to offer round-the-clock trading for these specific commodities fits strongly with the CME Group’s existing push into uninterrupted trading for equities and cryptocurrency products. The extension of this model into commodities like crude and gold points to a shift in trader preference to markets that are consistently available and never close.
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