CME Group has?announced March 2013 volume averaged 12.5 million contracts per day; this is “flat” as compared to the previous year’s figures.
March total volume was more than 249 million contracts with 88 percent of contracts trading electronically. For the first quarter, volume averaged 12.5 million contracts per day, up 1 percent from 2012’s first quarter. Quarterly highlights included record futures and options volume in the British Pound, Japanese Yen, Ultra Treasury Bond, longer-dated Eurodollar and live cattle contracts.?
In addition, during February, CME had record FX options and Treasury futures volume along with strong Treasury options volume.
Other March highights included the following:
Foreign exchange
- Average daily volume was 1.1 million contracts, up 14 percent from March 2012.
- The global suite of FX products had record open interest and large open interest holders on March 7, 2013.?
- March equity index volume averaged 3.1 million contracts per day, up 13 percent from the same period last year.?
Interest Rate
- Average daily volume was 5.2 million contracts, down 7 percent from March 2012.
- Treasury futures volume averaged 2.5 million daily contracts, up 9 percent compared with the same period a year ago.?
- Treasury options volume averaged 454,000 daily contracts, up 3 percent from March 2012.?
- Eurodollar futures volume averaged 1.9 million daily contracts, down 11 percent from the same period a year ago, while Eurodollar options volume averaged 395,000 contracts per day, down 49 percent from March of last year.?
- Strength in longer-dated Eurodollar contract activity partially offset low volatility at the front end of the curve; this included solid volume in Purple Mid-Curve options, which just launched on March 11, 2013.
Energy volume
- Average daily volume was 1.8 million contracts, up 3 percent as compared to the prior March; it also saw record open interest in WTI futures.?
- Henry Hub Natural Gas Futures set nine consecutive open interest records.
- Open interest for NYMEX Brent Crude Oil Futures surpassed 50,000.?
- CME Group metals volume averaged 368,000 daily contracts, down 7 percent from the same period last year.?
Agricultural commodities
- Average daily volume was 969,000 contracts, down 13 percent compared with the prior-year period.?
- Kansas City Board of Trade hard red winter wheat futures and options volume averaged 24,579 contracts daily, up 24 percent compared with the same period in 2012.?