Friday's records were set in Eurodollar futures at 4,569,667, Eurodollar options at 7,005,693, Nasdaq-100 futures at 117,841, and Russell 2000 futures at 22,624.
Overall exchange open interest set a new record on Thursday, June 7, at 13,704,474, culminating a series of records during the course of a month CME's open interest on futures and futures options is the highest among exchanges worldwide.
Eurodollar futures-CME's premier interest rate product-are the most heavily traded futures contract in the world. Introduced in 1981, Eurodollars are time deposits denominated in U.S. dollars held outside of the United States and have been a benchmark interest rate in corporate funding for decades. The Eurodollar futures contract represents an interest rate on a three-month deposit of $1 million.
CME's E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures, launched in June 1999, are, along with its E-mini S&P 500 futures, the exchange's fastest growing contracts. Trading volume in E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures has risen 356 percent, year-to-date, through May 2001. The electronically traded "mini" versions of CME's most actively traded equity index products have helped push overall electronic volume on CME's GLOBEX®2 system up 141 percent, year-to-date through May, to 29.4 million contracts.
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 $28 billion in collateral deposits and administers more than $1 billion of letters of credit.
