First half year volumes across the world's largest exchanges reveal the industry to be on course for a bumper year in 2003.
Eurex and the Chicago futures exchanges set six month volumes substantially higher than a year earlier - in Eurex's case some 42% up on the first six months of 2002, at more than half a billion contracts. Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) traded 315m during the period, up 22% on the 259m traded last year. Chicago Board of Trade saw a total of 210m by the end of June, an increase of 38% on the 153m in 2002.
Record results across equity option and fixed-income products contributed to Eurex's stellar performance, with a monthly total of 102m for June. A total of 58m contracts were traded in capital market products, with new records set in the Bund and the Bobl futures, up 64% to 25.3m contracts...