BM&F: Contracts Traded During The First Nine Months Of 2006 Exceed Total Trading In 2005

The Brazilian Mercantile & Futures Exchange ended the first nine months of 2006 with a volume greater than that registered during the entire year of 2005. From January to September the accumulated volume was 199,001,351 contracts, in comparison to 197,950,474 contracts traded from January to December of last year.

From January to September 2006, BM&F had an average of 1.064 million contracts traded daily. During the same period of 2005, the average volume was 754.8 thousand contracts per day – an increase of 40.98% from one year to the other.

The markets that most contributed to the increase in volume were Dollar and Interest Rate (ID) futures. During the first nine months of 2006, Dollar futures, which registered a daily average of 209.1 thousand contracts, rose 61.25% over the same period last year. ID futures, which had an average of 450.8 thousand contracts per day in 2005(from January to September), traded during the same period this year 625.6 thousand daily contracts on average, a 38.78% growth.

Open interest referring to the last trading session in the month of September (12.808 million) also presented an increase: in relation to the last trading day of last year, a 17.25% rise; and in comparison to the last trading session of September 2005, a 28.64% upturn.


Agricultural markets hit record volume in 2006

The agricultural markets at BM&F (including futures, options, and ex-pit) hit historic record volumes during the accumulated months of January to September 2006. 945,895 contracts were registered, a value 21.1% greater than that of the same period last year.

The highlight of this segment was the soybean futures market. The accumulated volume of January to September of this year, 65,537 contracts, has already surpassed the total traded from January to December of last year, 47,397 contracts.

The corn market also has significant volume growth during 2006: from Janaury to September 92,932 contracts were traded, 34.40% above the registered volume of last year.

BM&F’s agricultural markets closed the last trading session of September with an open interest of 83.797, 81% higher than the open interest of 46.305 registered during the same period last year.


Mini futures register 5.18 million contracts

BM&F’s mini futures closed the first nine months of this year with a total of 5.189 million traded contracts, an equivalent volume of 27.749 contracts per day. Last year, from January to December, futures mini totaled 1.013 million traded contracts. The Exchange offers four future mini contracts: Dollar, worth US$ 5,000 (standard contract size is US$ 50 thousand); Ibovespa, valued in points, being each point worth R$ 0.20 (standard contract point size is R$ 1.00); Live Cattle, worth 33 arrobas (standard size is 330 arrobas); and Coffee, the newest addition to the mini contracts, launched on September 22, 2006, with a size of 10 bags of 60 kg (standard contract size is 100 bags).