S&P UBS Leveraged Loan Futures Start On CME Globex Under CBOT Rules

CME Group announced on September 15, 2026 that its S&P UBS USD Liquid Leveraged Loan Index futures began trading on September 14, 2026, extending the exchange’s credit futures complex into the U.S. leveraged loan market. The contracts are available to trade on CME Globex, are eligible for submission to clearing via CME ClearPort, and are listed on, and subject to, the rules of CBOT.

The S&P UBS Leveraged Loan Indices are a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and UBS AG, with the trademarks licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.

Contract Terms and Listing

The financially settled contract has a unit of US$100 times the index, carries the product code LVE on both Globex and ClearPort, and uses LVE as its Bloomberg ticker, according to a contract overview by Brendan Wilson, Director of Interest Rates Research and Product Development at CME Group, published on September 11, 2026. Prices are quoted as an index price, and the minimum price fluctuation is 0.1 index points, or $10.00 per contract, on Globex and 0.01 index points, or $1.00 per contract, on ClearPort.

The listing schedule covers the nearest three quarterly months in the March, June, September and December cycle, and trading terminates on the business day before the third Wednesday of the contract month. Block trades require a minimum of 50 contracts, carry a 15-minute reporting window and are derived-block eligible. The matching algorithm is FIFO, and trading and clearing hours run Sunday through Friday from 5:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Central time on both venues.

CME Group’s Research and Product Development department set the initial listing in exchange notice SER-9777, addressed to members, member firms and market users, with a notice date of July 15, 2026 and an effective date of September 14, 2026.

Index Composition and Market Background

The underlying S&P UBS USD Liquid Leveraged Loan Index, which carries the Bloomberg ticker IBXXLLTR, is a subset of the broader S&P UBS Leveraged Loan Index and targets the 100 most liquid and tradable loan facilities, the overview states. Eligible loans must be fully funded term loans denominated in U.S. dollars with a minimum facility size of $500 million and at least one year to maturity at issuance, and the index includes both sub-investment-grade and unrated loans. Selection uses daily liquidity scores from S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Evaluated Bond Pricing Service, which summarize each loan across the number of dealers providing runs, the frequency of runs, average size and average bid-offer spread. The index rebalances monthly, with an additional weekly rebalancing to reinvest cash earned from intra-month redemption payments.

As of June 30, 2026, the index consisted of 68% B-rated loans, 28% BB-rated loans and 4% CCC-rated loans, with credit quality assessed using an average of Moody’s (MCO ) and S&P ratings, according to the overview. Between the first half of 2024 and the first half of 2026, daily price returns of the liquid index showed a 93% correlation with those of the broader index.

Leveraged loans are extended to highly indebted companies with sub-investment-grade credit profiles, are syndicated by commercial banks and are frequently used by private equity firms to fund leveraged buyouts, acquisitions and dividend recapitalizations, the overview explains. The loans typically carry floating rates, are almost always secured by borrower collateral and are typically senior secured, ranking above unsecured high-yield bonds in the capital structure, a position that has historically produced higher recovery rates in default, though the overview notes that limited covenant protections may erode that advantage. The loans are not classified as securities and trade over the counter between broker-dealers and institutional investors. Growth in collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) has created a steady stream of institutional demand, as the loans are packaged into those securities. The par amount of outstanding U.S. leveraged loans rose from $1.23 trillion at the end of 2018 to $1.54 trillion by the end of June 2026, while the U.S. high-yield corporate bond market expanded from $1.24 trillion to $1.52 trillion over the same period, the overview states, citing S&P DJI and Bloomberg data.

The overview states that the leveraged loan market has no broad-based, liquid credit default swap index comparable to that of the high-yield bond market, and that participants currently manage exposure with total return swaps and exchange-traded funds tied to loan indices. In 2025, standardized total return swaps tied to the liquid index traded $39.11 billion, while the BKLN and SRLN exchange-traded funds traded $112.2 billion; in the first half of 2026, the index swaps traded $19.9 billion and the two funds traded $65 billion. As bilateral over-the-counter instruments, the swaps require negotiated ISDA agreements and are subject to uncleared margin rules, under which initial margin tends to be significantly higher than for centrally cleared derivatives with a similar risk profile, while the funds are funded instruments whose shorting involves borrow fees and recall risk.

As centrally cleared futures, the new contracts are not subject to uncleared margin rules, and CME Clearing allows margin offsets against other Credit futures, Treasury futures and Equity Index futures, according to the overview. It identifies use cases for banks hedging loan origination, CLO warehouse financing and secondary-market exposures, and for asset managers and CLO managers establishing broad exposure while loan trades settle, shorting futures during the ramp-up period of a new deal, or running a portfolio overlay while maintaining high-conviction loan positions.

CME Group credit futures launched in June 2024. The company reports that more than 1.5 million contracts have traded across the complex, with open interest exceeding $2 billion in September 2026, and that the new contracts can provide automatic margin offsets against its interest rate and equity futures, part of the $95 billion in daily efficiencies it says it delivers to clients across asset classes.

“Our new S&P UBS Liquid Leveraged Loan Index futures give institutions the risk management tools they’ve been asking for – beyond investment grade and high-yield markets,” said Ted Carey, Executive Director of Rates and OTC Products at CME Group. He added that offering the product within a single clearing house provides cross-margining benefits and frees up capacity on client balance sheets.

Cameron Drinkwater, Chief Product and Operations Officer at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said the launch “marks a significant milestone for the U.S. leveraged loan market,” describing it as the first exchange-traded futures contract linked to a transparent and representative leveraged loan benchmark.