Chicago's two main futures exchanges have both seen recent volume surges on their electronic trading platforms, following measures which have enabled the exchanges to see off the early stages of all-electronic foreign competition.

Eurodollar futures volumes surged on Chicago Mercantile Exchange's (CME) Globex platform, hitting a new record on 2 April, with 615,932 contracts executed. That contributed to a total Eurodollar record day of 2,548,246. The electronic volume surpassed the prior record of 405,855 on 5 March, which also was the previous one-day record for total Eurodollar futures trading of 2,177,217.

CME recently approved a measure to move front-month Eurodollar contracts off the floor and onto the screen entirely, if Globex volume failed to reach 25% (see FO Week Vol 9 No 6). So far, this target has been exceeded.

The recent waves...