CME total interest rate volume was 2.3 million contracts per day in February, up 78 percent from the same period a year ago. This increase was driven by electronic CME Eurodollar futures, which represented 77 percent of total Eurodollar volume in February compared with 15 percent in February 2004. Electronic CME Eurodollar futures averaged 1.2 million contracts per day in February.
Average daily volume of CME foreign exchange (FX) products was 266,000 contracts, representing notional value of $35 billion per day and an increase of 49 percent compared to February 2004. During the month, electronic foreign exchange products increased 83 percent from the same period one year ago to reach 210,000 contracts per day. Trading in CME E-mini™ equity index products averaged 1.1 million contracts per day in February, up 16 percent versus the same period last year.
Open interest for all CME products at the end of February was at an all-time high, above 40 million contracts, including 9 million Total Return Asset ContractsTM (TRAKRS). Additionally, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) had approximately 11.7 million open positions at the CME Clearing House in February. Open interest represents the number of contract positions which are not closed out at the end of a trading session. CBOT’s average daily volume in February was over 3.2 million contracts per day, up 40 percent from February 2004.
“February was another record volume month for CME and had the highest year-over-year growth that we have seen in recent history,” said CME Chairman Terry Duffy. “Across the board, our volumes grew in all product lines. Electronic trading on CME Globex has doubled since this time last year and open interest reached a new record high of 29.1 million positions on February 17. Looking ahead, we expect to continue benefiting from the ongoing growth trends within the industry as we redouble our efforts to reach out to new markets and attract new business to CME.”
“Our long-term strategy is to leverage our scale advantage and deepen the liquidity in our products to drive revenue and profitability,” said CME Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue. “As our strong volume in the first two months of the year demonstrates, we continue to make significant progress toward achieving that goal. In January, volume from all user segments including members, customers, and special programs increased compared to the fourth quarter of 2004. Additionally, the mix of member and customer volumes during January was similar to the fourth quarter of 2004. While January was a record volume month for CME’s E-mini product line, member volume increased at a faster rate than customer volume. So far this quarter, our interest rate product line, which has our lowest average rate per contract, has contributed a higher proportion of the total volume. Therefore, we expect the average rate per contract in the first quarter to come in slightly below the average rate per contract of 70.3 cents reported in the fourth quarter.”
CME AVERAGE DAILY VOLUME (In Thousands)
|
|
February 2005 |
February 2004 |
Percentage Change |
|
PRODUCT GROUP |
|
|
|
|
Interest Rates |
2,256 |
1,268 |
78% |
|
E-Mini’s |
1,105 |
953 |
16% |
|
Equity Standard |
101 |
82 |
24% |
|
Foreign Exchange |
266 |
178 |
49% |
|
Commodities |
43 |
32 |
35% |
|
Sub Total |
3,772 |
2,513 |
50% |
|
TRAKRS |
28 |
48 |
-41% |
|
Total |
3,800 |
2,561 |
48% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
VENUE |
|
|
|
|
Open Outcry |
1,239 |
1,271 |
-3% |
|
GLOBEX (Ex TRAKRS) |
2,489 |
1,208 |
106% |
|
Privately Negotiated |
44 |
34 |
27% |
