March 26, 2004, was the second most active single trading day in the exchange's 134-year history, with 235,340 total futures and options contracts being traded. The all-time busiest day was March 11, 2004, which had 246,413 contracts traded.
NYBOT's World Sugar futures had the busiest day to date on March 26, 2004, with a daily volume record of 136,492 contracts (the previous record was 108,788 contracts from March 11, 2004).
Sugar No. 11 options also had a daily volume record of 38,255 contracts set on March 24, 2004 (the previous record was 36,067 contracts from February 20, 1998).
Daily open interest records in both sugar futures and options were established with 318,841 futures contracts on March 24, 2004, and 329,191 options contracts set on March 26, 2004.
NYBOT's sugar No. 11 is 112,000 lbs. of raw centrifugal cane sugar from 29 countries throughout the world. The contract has historically been the exchange's largest market in terms of volume.
On March 23, 2004, NYBOT announced it was launching a World Ethanol contract based on its popular World Sugar contract. The ethanol contract, which the futures begin trading on May 7 and the options begin May 10, calls for 7,750 U.S. gallons of biomass-derived, undenatured, anhydrous ethanol. One NYBOT ethanol contract roughly equals the amount of ethanol one NYBOT world sugar contract would produce.
The New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) is the parent company of the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange, Inc. (CSCE) and the New York Cotton Exchange (NYCE). Through its two exchanges, NYBOT offers an expanding range of agricultural and financial products. Information about the New York Board of Trade can be found at www.nybot.com and www.nybotlive.com.
