Friday's record Eurodollar futures trading activity on GLOBEX of 147,507 was roughly four times the average daily volume the contract has posted on the system during the first seven months of 2003.
CME's Eurodollar contract was the world's most actively traded futures contract in 2002, with total volume of over 202 million contracts for the year. It serves as a major tool for the management of risk associated with changes in short-term interest rates.
In January, CME launched the Eagle (Electronic Arbitrage GLOBEX Liquidity Enhancer) Project which facilitated electronic Eurodollar trading by creating implied spread capability on GLOBEX. Implied pricing functionality in Eurodollar futures via Eagle enables market professionals to see new bids and offers-in individual quarterly contracts and calendar spreads-derived from outright bids and offers in quarterly contracts and pre-de?ned calendar spreads.
Separately, CME's combined open interest levels also set a new record following Friday's trading, with an exchange-wide total now approaching 28.3 million, an increase of more than 250,000 positions, or almost 1 percent, over the prior day's close. The rise was largely due to open interest increases in CME's interest rate and equity index products. CME has the highest open interest of any exchange in the world. Open interest is a widely recognized indicator of the level of customer interest in an exchange's products. It represents the number of futures and options on futures contracts outstanding at the close of trading each day.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) is the largest futures exchange in the United States. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on its trading floors and GLOBEX® electronic trading platform. CME offers futures and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities.The exchange moved about $1.5 billion per day in settlement payments in the first half of 2003 and managed $29.1 billion in collateral deposits at June 30, 2003. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000® Index.
