"On the heels of our history-making annual volume last year, 2001 ushered in a month of all-time record volume," said CME Chairman Scott Gordon.
"Our customers have spoken loudly by their choice of trading instruments that we have the product mix needed for volatile and uncertain market conditions," said CME President and CEO Jim McNulty.
Volume traded on CME's GLOBEX®2 electronic trading system set a new monthly record in January of 4.8 million contracts. January's volume represents a 129 percent increase over year-ago levels, when 2.1 million contracts were traded.
Also for the first time, trading volume on CME surpassed 1 million contracts on all but one day in the month, exceeding 2 million on two consecutive days. Those days became the third and second busiest trading days in CME history, respectively, with 2.115 million contracts traded on Jan. 3, and 2.151 million contracts changing hands on Jan. 4. CME's highest volume day remains Feb. 4, 1994, when 2.192 million contracts were traded.
Additionally on Jan. 3, CME's Clearing House successfully moved a record $6.4 billion through the banking system during the course of its regular daily mark-to-market settlement procedures. The greatest sum previously transferred by the Clearing House for a single trading day was $5.2 billion on April 14, 2000.
January was the busiest month ever for both interest rate and equity index products on CME, with 22.7 million interest rate and 6.6 million equity index futures and options changing hands. CME's benchmark Eurodollar futures contract set a new record of 17.5 million contracts traded, up 109 percent from January 2000. The Eurodollar is the most actively traded futures contract in the United States.
E-mini equity index products continued to set all-time volume records, with E-mini S&P 500 futures volume of 2.2 million representing a 71 percent increase over January 2000. E-mini Nasdaq 100 volume of 1.8 million was 508 percent higher than year-ago levels.
Live cattle futures also reached a record 511,050 contracts traded, rising 47 percent above earlier levels.
Among product groups, volume in interest rate products rose 106 percent over January 2000, while equity index products rose 46 percent and agricultural products rose 28 percent; currency product volume declined 16 percent.
Open interest on CME stood at 9.6 million positions at month's end, 28 percent higher than one year ago. Included in the open interest figures are 376,071 open positions in agricultural products and 50,127 open positions in Euro FX currency options-both new records. Open interest is the number of futures and options positions outstanding at the close of trading.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) is an international marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers on its trading floors and GLOBEX2 around-the-clock electronic trading system. CME offers futures contracts and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign currencies and agricultural commodities. On Nov. 13, 2000, CME finalized its transformation into a for-profit, shareholder-owned corporation as it became the first U.S. financial exchange to demutualize by converting its membership interests into shares of common stock that can trade separately from exchange trading privileges. The exchange moves about $1 billion per day in settlement payments, manages $25 billion in collateral deposits and administers more than $1 billion of letters of credit.
