CME Group, a Chicago-based derivatives marketplace, reported its fourth-quarter international trading volumes on Monday, revealing a healthy year-on-year uptick in its equity, interest rates and energy products.
Taking a look first at the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, in the fourth quarter of 2018, CME Group achieved an average daily volume (ADV) of 921,000 contracts in the area. When measured against the same time period in 2017, this is up by 45 percent.
According to the statement from CME Group, this was largely driven by equity products, which reported a strong surge in trading volume of 201 percent year-on-year. Interest rates and energy products also each saw a solid increase of 42 percent and 35 percent respectively.
For the whole of 2018, the ADV for APAC was 862,000 contracts. When compared to the corresponding period in 2017 this represents an increase of 29 percent. This growth was thanks to a 108 percent year-on-year uptick in equity products, and well as a 28 percent and 14 percent jump in energy and interest rate products, respectively.
Christopher Fix
source: LinkedIn
Commenting on the results achieved in APAC, Christopher Fix, the Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific at CME Group said: "2018 saw a number of key geopolitical events which contributed to increased Volatility in international financial markets, especially towards the tail-end of the year, and further highlighted the need for Risk Management on a robust, liquid and regulated marketplace.
“We continue to see trading volume growth out of Asia Pacific, as market participants further look to CME Group to manage their risks across multiple asset classes."
Interest rate products drive growth for CME Group in Latin America
Trading volumes in Latin America also showed healthy growth during the quarter. During Q4 of 2018, the ADV for the region was 107,000 contracts, up 54 percent when compared to the same time period in the previous year.
In Latin America, however, it was interest rate products that predominately drove growth by achieving a 204 percent year-on-year increase. Equity products were also up by 21 percent on a yearly basis.
For 2018 as a whole, the ADV for Latin America was 100,000 contracts. This represents an increase of 49 percent year-on-year. Again, this uptick was driven mainly by growth in interest rate products (103 percent), followed by equity products (30 percent).
EMEA region reports modest but solid growth
CME’s trading activity in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region also achieved positive results. However, they were less significant than APAC and Latin America. Specifically, ADV for the quarter hit 3.7 million contracts, which is 16 percent higher than the same period in 2017.
Again, equity and interest rate products drove the uptick, by increasing by 44 percent and 28 percent respectively on a yearly comparison. For the complete year, the EMEA ADV for 2018 was 3.4 million contracts, up by 14 percent from 2017.
