An Appraisal: Triple Expiration Wasn't So Momentous After All
As trading ended at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Friday, scores of traders threw their order cards in the air, like graduates tossing their mortar boards at a high school commencement. And like many graduation exercises, Friday's stock-market session turned out to be less momentous than many had anticipated.</br></br>The final minutes of trading Friday were probably the most intensely scrutinized in the history of the stock and futures exchanges. Federal regulators, exchange officials, investors, newspaper reporters and television crews all wanted to see what market contortions might be produced by the simultaneous expiration of stock-index futures and options and individual stock options.</br></br>This quarterly phenomenon got so much attention because exchange officials and regulators are considering measures to alleviate some of the sharp price swings that sometimes result when arbitrage traders and other investors rush to even out their related positions in stocks and expiring futures and options contracts.</br></br>Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up about 11 points at 3:59 p.m. EDT; Big Board volume was about 109 million shares. By the time all the "market on close" orders were executed, the industrial average had gained more than 12 points to close at 1879.54, up 23.68. The final volume tally was more than 149.1 million shares, compared with 129 million Thursday.</br></br>Even so, traders on the floor of the Big Board said there were "no surprises at the close."