LIFFE traded 16,335,132 futures and options contracts during the month of January, representing an average daily volume of 742,506 contracts. This represents a 66% increase in total monthly volume on January 2000 and a 62% increase on December 2000.
LIFFE's Deputy Chief Executive, John Foyle said, "Trading volume across all LIFFE products increased with the exchange trading over 1 million contracts on several days. Short term interest rate products saw continued growth of 75% compared to January 2000, which was principally due to the volatility in the underlying market. The exchange's largest contract, the Three Month Euribor future was up by over 80% on January 2000. In the month we introduced Universal Stock Futures, volume in LIFFE's equity products rose 52% year on year with volume in individual equity options increasing by 115% over the same period."
LIFFE CONNECT™'s distribution continued to increase as another seven dealing rooms went live in January, bringing the total number of sites to 361 worldwide. LIFFE CONNECT™ can now be accessed in 23 countries globally, more than any other electronic trading system in the world.
The following records were set in January 2001:
- Individual equity options set a new daily record of 63,453 on 10 January 2001 (previous daily record of 58,418 set on 13 December 2000).
- Individual equity options set a daily open interest record of 1,221,895 contracts on 17 January (previous daily record of 1,094,572 set on 20 December 2000).
- Three Month Euribor Option set a daily open interest record of 1,332,017 contracts on 25 January (previous daily record of 1,199,922 set on 15 September 2000)
- Three Month Sterling Mid-curve Option set a daily open interest record of 51,953 contracts on 25 January (previous daily record of 46,989 set on 18 December)
