Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE), part of the ASX Group, experienced record daily trading volume in the SFE SPI 200™ Index Futures contract on 19 December 2006. A total of 258,445 contracts were traded, up 12% from the previous record set on 13 June 2006.
Richard Murphy, ASX’s General Manager of Equity Markets said: “The record volume in SFE SPI 200™ Futures was generated by a combination of factors. These included the ‘roll’ activity from the December 2006 contract into the March 2007 contract, prior to expiry this Thursday; the growth in Open Interest of approximately 50% over the last 12 months; and the continued short-term investing of cash by fund managers to track the index, known as cash equitisation. There has also been increasing off-shore usage of the SFE SPI 200™ Index Futures contract by hedge funds and proprietary trading houses.”
As at the end of November 2006, total traded volumes in SFE SPI 200™ Futures were up 13% for the year to date. This follows a rise of 21% on traded volumes in 2005.
