CME Posts October Record Equity Volume

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) posted its best October ever in equity and index products with volume up 13.9 percent, as trading was fuelled by all-time monthly records in several individual products. Among the products posting their best single-month volume records ever were E-mini S&P 500 futures (1,237,023) and E-mini Nasdaq 100 futures (104,692). Futures and options contracts on the full-size Nasdaq 100 Index posted their best October ever with respective volumes of 209,007 and 26,459. Options on the E-mini S&P 500 futures contract also hit a new October high with total trading volume of 5,112. Other futures contracts posting October volume records include lean hogs (187,794), basic formula price (BFP) milk (3,082), GSCI (77,541), Australian dollars (58,398), South African rand (5,824), S&P/BARRA Growth Index (332) and S&P/BARRA Value Index (392). In the Interest Rate sector, options on Euroyen also posted an October record with total volume of 7,613. Overall exchange volume for the month totalled 16,209,587 futures and options contracts. Trading volume on the CME's GLOBEX®2 electronic trading system continued its steady pattern of growth in October with total monthly volume of 1,780,098 contracts - a 7.2 percent increase from the prior month and 54 percent increase over October 1998. Year-to-date GLOBEX2 volume is up 61.7 percent over the same year-ago period.