Crop year-to-date futures volume for feed wheat is 31.5% over last year’s level at 63,559 contracts. Western barley futures trade for the 2003/04 crop year is 6.6% over that of last year at 174,333 contracts. Canola futures volume for the crop year-to-date is 1,479,126 contracts, representing an increase of 4.4% from a year ago. Crop year-to-date options volume is 85% higher than a year ago with 35,629 options being traded since the beginning of the 2003/04 crop year.
Total futures contract volume for May 2004 was off by 1.6% from May 2003 with a total of 136,181 contracts traded. Canola futures trade during May was unchanged from a year ago with 120,218 contracts traded. Western barley futures trade was down 5.2% from a year ago with 13,179 contracts traded and feed wheat futures volume was 28.9% lower with 2,784 contracts trading during the month.
There were 1,116 canola options traded during May.
At the end of the month total open interest stood at 87,679 contracts. This level of open interest is 31.4% higher than the level recorded at the end of May 2003.
*Please note that volume numbers now include pit trades, Exchange for Physicals (EFP’S), Exchange for Risk (EFR’s), futures deliveries and options exercises.
