Eurodollar futures, the exchange’s flagship interest rate product and the world’s most actively traded futures contract, set new open interest records for the third consecutive session beginning on March 6 with 4,166,957 positions and reaching 4,184,982 positions yesterday. Also, for the third consecutive session, open interest in Eurodollar options recorded new highs, beginning with 4,681,293 on Mar. 6 and reaching 4,802,746 positions yesterday.
E-mini S&P 500 and E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures contracts, the fastest-growing contracts in the history of the exchange, continued their rise to record open interest levels for the second consecutive day with a record 104,538 and 96,248 positions respectively, surpassing their previous days’ records of 98,246 for the E-mini S&P 500 and 92,894 for the E-mini Nasdaq-100. In addition, the Nasdaq-100 set three consecutive days of open interest records beginning on March 6 with 59,607 and reaching 68,156 Thursday.
Open interest is the number of futures and options contracts outstanding at the close of trading each day. Open interest can be seen as a measure of the use of risk management instruments by institutions and individuals with a long-term stake in the markets, as well as the liquidity of a contract.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) is an international marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers on its trading floors and GLOBEX®2 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.
