The primary securities Exchange in Australia, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), has published its monthly activity report for December of 2019 this Tuesday, revealing a solid uptick in Clearing for the over-the-counter (OTC) markets.
During the final month of 2019, the notional value of OTC interest rate derivative contracts centrally cleared by ASX was AU$1.45 trillion. This is a significant increase from the corresponding prior period. It is higher by 407 percent from the AU$285.3 billion centrally cleared in December of 2018.
For the 2019 calendar year, the notional value of OTC interest rate derivative contracts centrally cleared was $14.73 trillion. When weighing this against the previous calendar year, which had a notional value of $5.21 trillion, it has risen by 182.6 percent.
Taking a look at futures, the Australian exchange reported that the average daily futures volume climbed by one percent year-on-year in December. The average regular options volume for the month, on the other hand, soared by 121 percent against December of 2018.
Namely, the total futures contracts traded during the month was 18,007,593 contracts, This is higher than the 16,856,487 contracts traded in the same month of the previous year, which translates to a growth of seven percent.
The total options on futures volume contracts traded in the final month of 2019 was 126,265 contracts. Measuring this against December of 2018, when 54,292 contracts were traded, last month’s volume is higher by 133 percent.
Single stock options trading dropped on ASX
However, it wasn’t all gains across the ASX in December, as the average daily single stock options contracts traded actually fell on an annual comparison. Specifically, the average contracts traded dropped by 16 percent and index options average daily contracts traded slipped by 22 percent year-on-year.
