CME Group, one of the industry’s largest derivatives marketplaces, has inked a fresh all-time high open interest record of 129 million contracts on June 14, 2017, its second such peak in 2017. Its latest feat was attributed to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy action. In particular, the US central bank declared that it would begin cutting its holdings of bonds and other securities this year, signalling its confidence in a growing US economy and strengthened job market.
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In terms of specifics, CME Group saw an all-time open interest record of 129 million contracts yesterday, which managed to best a previous open interest record of 125.7 million contracts reached on May 11, 2017. The new record high was the product of a variety of volumes, with open interest, foreign Exchange (FX), futures and options all seeing new heights.
Many markets had been pricing in a rate hike for months, the second such instance by the US Federal Reserve in 2017. However, this lack of apparent suspense did little to diminish any daily volumes, as indicated by the highest-volume trading day in 2017 to date at 29.8 million contracts.
Looking at CME Group's FX futures and options products, the group also reported a record volume of 2.5 million contracts on June 14, 2017 – this stormed past a previous high of just 2.3 million contracts set earlier this year on March 10, 2016, climbing by a factor of 8.7 percent. This was further reiterated by another peak – more than 1,100 – of Open Interest Holders traded FX futures on the same day.
Delving into this segment, Canadian dollar (CAD) futures and options also proved to Yield a highly active trading day on June 14, 2017, recording 257,000 contracts traded, its highest reading in nearly five years. The previous record was 251,000, set on September 13, 2012.
Finally, CME Group's Interest Rate complex also was influenced by strong volumes on June 14, with Fed Fund futures being a particular mover. Consequently, an all-time high of more than 907,000 contracts traded in a single day was recorded, beating a previous record of 714,000 set back on March 2, 2017.
