CME Contract Volumes Rise Slightly in November, FX Lower

The CME Group has published their volume figures for November. For the month, total contracts traded (including futures and options) were 231,951,239, a 2.1% increase from October but 16.0% below the same period last year. The largest driver of trading growth was in the CME Group’s COMEX Metals unit which saw MoM and YoY volumes rise 37.7% and 11.3% respectively. Last week, the CME reported that the COMEX experienced its largest single day of trading volume for Gold futures products.

In FX, futures volume was recorded at 15,331,000 which was 5.9% lower than the same period last year and 1.7% below October’s figures. The FX options segment though did much better than its futures counterpart as FX options volumes rose 31.4% from October and 26.1% from November 2011.

Among individual currencies, trading in the Japanese yen surged and was 53.6% higher than last year. The currency benefitted from increased Volatility as Forex traders were selling the yen on new rounds of stimulus from the Bank of Japan. The gains in volume tracked a similar situation occurring at the Tokyo Financial Exchange in its Click 365 product. Yen products moved into third place among the CME’s most traded currencies, coming ahead of the British pound for November. The New Zealand dollar also continued to see gains in trading activity as forex traders have been speculating on how a slowdown from China as well as Europe’s financial woes will affect New Zealand’s commodity and tourism markets.

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