A new trading record of 17 million contracts was set by international derivatives exchange Eurex on January 22, beating the previous mark of 15.5 million contracts from June 6 last year, a
A new trading record of 17 million contracts was set by international derivatives exchange Eurex on January 22, beating the previous mark of 15.5 million contracts from June 6 last year, and another 15.3 million contracts were traded on January 23.
The new records were set amid extreme turbulence on European financial markets, exacerbated by the unwinding by France’s Société Générale of European equity futures positions amounting to tens of billions of euros apparently made by so-called rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel.
Average daily volume for the first three weeks of January reached some 9.4 million contracts, compared with 7.5 million contracts in January last year. The exchange’s overall turnover stood at 150 million contracts as of January 23, compared with a total monthly volume of 132.2 million contracts in 2007.
Strong trading was seen in the benchmark equity index derivatives. Options on DJ Euro Stoxx 50 set a new daily record with 2.9 million contracts on January 21, followed by 2.7 million and 2.4 million on the two following days.
Volumes in the Euro Stoxx 50 future were also high with 4.3 million contracts traded on January 22 and 3.5 million on the preceding and following days. The Dax option had its second-best result on January 23 with 788,203 contracts, after 762,779 on January 21 and 753,550 the following day.
Within the interest rate derivatives segment, the Euro Bund future recorded 2.4 million contracts on January 22, the Euro Schatz Futures 1.6 million and Euro Bobl Futures 1.5 million, significantly heavier than normal trading volumes. Altogether, the segment had a daily turnover on January 22 of 5.6 million futures and 526,051 options.
On January 21, a new daily trading record of 400,000 EUA futures was reached on the market for European Union emission allowances operated by the European Energy Exchange and Eurex. A total of 3 million EUAs had been traded between the beginning of the year and January 23, compared with total monthly volume in December of some 1.4 million EUAs.
The Eurex system also recorded a striking increase in order and quotes volumes. A new record total of 550 million quotes on January 23 was almost three times the average daily volume of around 200 million in 2007, but Eurex says round-trip-times remained stable.
