According to an announcement made by the CME Group, trading volumes in its foreign Exchange products division have increased 27% in March, rebounding steadily. The total number of FX contracts traded on the exchange increased by almost 44% to about 1,087,000 daily which is also higher by 27% when compared to a year ago.
The average daily notional value of FX contracts traded in March totaled $112 billion, when compared to $78 billion in February.
The aggregate trading volumes during the first-quarter of 2015, averaged 15.0 million contracts daily, which is higher by 10 per cent. The result represents the second highest quarterly volume ever.
growth is mainly focused in energy, where oil price Volatility has been unabating
The growth is mainly focused in energy, where oil price volatility has been unabating for more than half a year, and FX, where average daily volume grew 17 percent. Other quarterly highlights include record overall options average daily volume of 2.8 million contracts, record FX options average daily volume of 96,000 contracts.
Overall volumes in March totaled 13.7 million contracts per day, which is lower by 3 percent from March 2014. A total of 88 percent of total volume for March 2015 was traded electronically. Options volume in March averaged 2.6 million contracts per day, up 2 percent versus March 2014, with electronic options growing 12 percent over the same period.
Interest rate volume at the CME Group averaged 6.5 million contracts daily, which was lower by 8 percent when compared with March 2014. Eurodollar futures volume marked 2.6 million contracts per day, down 6 percent from the same period a year ago. Eurodollar options volume averaged 959,000 contracts per day, up 5 percent from March last year.
Treasury futures volume averaged 2.4 million contracts per day, down 13 percent compared with March 2014. Treasury options volume averaged 481,000 contracts per day, down 20 percent from the same period last year.
