Wheat futures volume on April 25 exceeded all previous single-day records for any given April. A total of 26,446 hard red winter wheat contracts were traded, the equivalent of 132.230 million bushels. The previous record of 19,880 contracts or 99.4 million bushels was set almost a year ago on April 27, 2000. This marks the third month this year that a new monthly single-day record has been set in wheat futures.
Wheat options volume also set a new record for the month of April as 202,261 contracts were traded, breaking the previous April record of 13,538 contracts set in 1997 by 49.7 percent. Year-to-date wheat options volume is posting a 46.6 percent increase.
Open interest levels in the wheat options, wheat futures and Value Line’ futures contracts posted healthy increases in April when compared to April 2000, with wheat options 37.3 percent higher, wheat futures 14.8 percent higher, and Value Line’ futures 76.7 percent higher. Total exchange year-to-date volume for 2001 is 11.3 percent ahead of the figure at this point in 2000, with 867,276 contracts traded compared to 779,263 contracts last year.
