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Open interest in the Kansas City Board of Trade’s Hard Red Winter wheat futures contract has set a new all-time record. At the conclusion of Friday’s trade, open interest stood at 172,953 contracts. The previous record open interest was at 172,936 contracts, set on July 12, 2006.
The new record represents 864.77 million bushels of wheat compared to the old record of 864.68 million bushels. Open interest has been steadily increasing over the past year and is more than double the amount of a year ago. Last year at this time, open interest was at 75,047 contracts, representing 375.235 million bushels.
KCBT HRW wheat futures open interest has increased to record-high levels due to the largest projected wheat ending stocks numbers in over 20 years and an increase in both intra-market and inter-market spread trade activity, according to KCBT traders.
Volume has been extremely active in the KCBT HRW wheat futures contract thus far in 2010. At the end of May, year-to-date wheat futures trading volume was up 25.1 percent compared to 2009 numbers.
Open interest measures the number of open trading positions in a market. Each KCBT wheat futures contract represents 5,000 bushels of wheat.
The Kansas City Board of Trade, founded in 1856, is the world's largest futures market for hard red winter wheat. Daily quotes, market commentary, historical data and charting services are available on our website at www.kcbt.com.
