Record Volumes On Sydney Futures Exchange

Sydney Futures Exchange experienced the largest monthly transacted volume in its history in March with 8.74 million contracts traded. This represents an increase of 43% from the comparable period in 2005 and an increase of 12% from the previous record of 7,821,500 set in September 2005. Similar to the previous records, the March volumes coincided with the quarterly benchmark expiry of the equity and interest rate futures contracts. However, unlike the previous records, there were no notable market events driving trading activity. Instead, growth in trading volumes was the result of ‘rolling’ open interest and natural market usage.

“The record volumes in March have been especially pleasing because these record volumes coincided with an extremely orderly expiry process,” said Mr Peter Hiom, Executive General Manager of Business Development. “We also continue to see an increase in both our domestic and off-shore customer base and their usage of our products.”

In addition to record exchange volumes, new records were also achieved in the 3 Year Treasury Bond Futures and Options contracts, the 10 Year Treasury Bond Futures, the SPI 200 Futures, the New Zealand Bank Bill Futures and Electricity Futures contracts.

Product	Volume March 2006	% Increase/ March 2005	% Increase / Previous Record	Previous Record Date
3-Year Bond Futures	3,435,323	41.4%	12%	Sept 2005
10-Year Bond Futures	2,052,681	53.8%	26%	Sept 2005
SPI 200 Index Futures	847,227	9.7%	5.2%	Sept 2005
NZ Bank Bill Futures	225,379	107.3%	23.8%	June 1998
3-Year Bond Option	139,347	588%	65.9%	Apr 2005
Electricity Futures	3,730	276%	2.6%	Feb 2006
Total Exchange	8,744,397	43%	12%	Sept 2005

“In terms of April trading activity we have started very strongly,” added Mr Hiom. “Record overnight volumes on April 5th have been driven by a sentiment shift in the potential for further interest rate changes, and continued growth in Open Interest.” Open Interest for all exchange contracts reached 2.1 million contracts at the end of March 2006, an increase of 23% compared to March 2005.