The Options Insider

FIA Reports Global Futures and Options Volume Fell 15.3% in 2012

by | Mar 11, 2013 | Industry

The 2012 annual volume reports keep coming and on Monday, the Futures Industry Association’s (FIA) released its numbers.?

According to its volume statistics, global futures and options dropped 15.3% last year to 21.2 billion from 2011’s 24.9 billion.?

Last year’s figures represented a low last seen in 2009 and included double-digit declines across Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America.?

Regions

  • Asia-Pacific volumes fell 23.4% to 7.5 billion from 9.8 billion contracts.
  • North American volume fell 11.9% to 7.2 billion from 8.2 billion contracts.
  • European volume fell 12.5% to 4.4 billion from 5.0 billion.

Sectors

  • Individual equities contracts dropped 8.4% to 6.5 billion contracts from 7.1 billion.
  • Equity index volume plunged 28.5% to 6.0 billion from 8.5 billion contracts.
  • Interest rate contract volume fell by 16.0% to 2.9 billion from 3.5 billion.

Last year did include a few volume bright sports. This included a 7.9% increase in Latin America’s volume to 1.7 billion from 1.6 billion contracts. This came from a 9.0% volume jump at Brazil’s BM&FBovespa, which was the only exchange from the top 10 in the world that reported any growth last year.?

Commodities

On the commodities side,?volume increased for most contracts in 2012.

  • Agricultural commodity contracts volume rose 27.5% to 1.3 billion from 997 million.
  • Non-precious metals contract volume increased 27.4% to 554 million from 435 million contracts.
  • Energy contract volume rose 11.2% to 906 million from 815 million. A lot of this reflected the shift from ?swaps-to-futures at the Intercontinental Exchange and CME Group.

At the end of December, open interest was 706 million contracts, a 1.8% rise from 2011’s 693 million contracts.

2013 Volume

  • In January, U.S. futures and options volume increased 12.5% to 651 million contracts from 579 million.
  • This represents a 20.6% increase in U.S. futures-only volume, a 7.6% increase in options volume at U.S. exchanges regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a 12.4% increase in options regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.?