With nearly 38.2 million contracts traded in October, CME volume rose 91 percent higher than last October and averaged 1.7 million contracts a day. The underlying value of October trading totaled $27.3 trillion.
Year-to-date volume through October of 333.6 million contracts is up 75 percent over the same period last year and represents an underlying value of $237.5 trillion. That volume figure is more than 100 million higher than CME volume in all of 2000, which was a record year for the exchange.
Volume on CME's GLOBEX®2 electronic trading system reached an all-time monthly record of 10,276,674 contracts in October, a 154 percent increase over October 2000. Year-to-date GLOBEX2 volume through October reached 66,275,573, up 143 percent over the same period last year.
Volume in all of CME's product areas grew in October, with record equity and index product volume of more than 12.1 million contracts, an increase of 84 percent over year-ago levels. E-mini S&P 500 futures and E-mini Nasdaq-100 Index futures set new all-time monthly volume records of nearly 5.3 and 4 million contracts respectively, while other index products set new October volume highs: standard-sized Nasdaq-100 futures at 508,799 and Russell 2000 futures at 48,582. The E-mini Russell 2000 futures, launched on October 24, posted 3,683 contracts in its first five days of trade.
Interest rate futures and options on futures volume set a new October record of 23.5 million contracts, up 102 percent versus year-ago levels and including a record 9.2 million Eurodollar options on futures. Eurodollar futures volume set a new high for any October of 14.1 million contracts. Interest rate product volume year-to-date has grown more than 91 percent to 220.5 million contracts.
Foreign exchange product volume in October increased 50 percent above year-ago levels to more than 1.7 million contracts as side-by-side electronic and open outcry trading of the products continued to grow since its April inception. Electronic trading volume in foreign exchange futures set a new monthly record, at 412,549 - the first time monthly volume surpassed the 400,000 mark. Euro FX futures and options on futures set October records of 507,475 and 49,187 contracts, respectively. Other foreign exchange products setting a new record for any October were Euro/Japanese yen cross-rate futures, at 11,352, and New Zealand dollar futures, at 1,330 contracts.
Milk futures set a new monthly record of 10,969 contracts. Other products setting new records for any October included milk options at 2,107 contracts and lean hog options at 24,072 contracts.
Open interest reached a new record on Oct. 31 of nearly 16.3 million positions, an increase of more than 114 percent above year-ago levels.
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 exchange and commodities. The exchange moves about $1.5 billion per day in settlement payments and manages $28.4 billion in collateral deposits.
