CBOE Holdings, the holding company for Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), will be launching options on the MSCI Emerging Markets Index on Tuesday, April 21.

The CBOE ticker symbols are MXEF for options on the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

Under an agreement with MSCI Inc., announced in December 2014, options on the MSCI Indexes will be listed for trading in the US solely on the CBOE.

IMC Financial Markets will serve as the Electronic Designated Primary Market-Maker (E-DPM) for the new MSCI options contracts.

“Last year, nearly 100 million options traded industrywide on the popular EEM and EFA ETFs. CBOE’s ability to now also offer cash-settled, European-style options on these popular indexes enables us to better respond to the needs of institutional customers who wish to trade them,” said CBOE CEO Edward Tilly.

“In addition, the settlement times for the options will match the futures on these products, creating still more trading opportunities for our customers.”

Options on the MSCI Emerging Markets Index are designed to enable investors to efficiently hedge their non-US equity portfolio exposures or to diversify their portfolios.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index captures large- and mid-cap representation across 23 emerging market countries.

With 836 constituents, the index covers approximately 85% of the free-float-adjusted market capitalization in each country.

Since creating the first cash-settled index option in 1983, CBOE has been a pioneer and leader in index options trading.

Today, CBOE lists nearly 20 broad-based index options and is the exclusive home for options on the S&P 500 Index (SPX), the S&P 100 Index (OEX), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJX), and lists options on the NASDAQ-100 Index (NDX).