E-minis are futures contracts that represent a fraction of the value of standard futures. They are traded primarily on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's Globex electronic trading platform. E-mini contracts were first launched in 1997 for the S&P 500 index with great success, and are now available on a wide range of stock market indices, commodities and currencies. As of April, 2011, CME lists 44 unique E-mini contracts, of which approximately 10 have average daily trading volumes of over 1,000 contracts.